Chapter 10- the golden fruithawks and Luna owls and Diantha visits Luke and his family
Meanwhile, back at Tulio's Aviary
The centre for the conservation of Rio's wildlife, Tulio's Aviary and the Enclosure for Permanently Maimed Animals were both bustling with the activities of the workers as they continued to carry out their duties in their various jobs. Some brought in injured animals, most of them birds, into the Aviary for treatment while others checked on the inhabitants of the enclosure for the animals, many of them rare species, too injured and/or maimed to be returned to the wild. In Tulio's Aviary in the main medical room, a variety of birds were being cared for and checked and some more employees were researching and writing articles on laptops and computers. Among the activities, Tulio walked through, his sparkling gaze examining the progress of the workers. Then Joanna walked in.
"Hi, Joanna," said the lead ornithologist, "How are the two golden fruithawks and the two Luna owls doing in the breeding chamber?"
"They're doing fine," replied Joanna, Ahsoka the flying fox's former human carer but still-human companion, "still no sign of eggs from either of the pairs though."
"It may take a bit of time," said Tulio, "I know we may have been a bit too pushy with Blu and Jewel and then Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix, Ahsoka and their eventual mates to aver chicks and pups previously but they did eventually pair up and breed. I just hope the two fruithawks and owls who are the last known members of their species can follow that path..."
"I remember Ahsoka's ultrasound scan of her and her mate's first pup when she was pregnant with him," said Joanna with a smile, "I think I still have that image in my scrapbook of memories..."
"Your foster bat certainly has done well to produce three pups," said Tulio proudly, "Though she can only have one baby at a time rather than clutches of three or more like her macaw friends."
As she said this, two employees, a man and a woman, walked in.
"We're gonna check on the fruithawks and owls in the chamber, boss," said the male. Then the female wore a frown.
"Especially after that cockatoo escaped his cage and managed to enter into the chamber to attack those four sometime ago," said she.
"It had indeed been alarming," said Tulio, remembering that incident, "Though one of the Luna owls had managed to literally throw the cockatoo out of the chamber, unfortunately directly at my face. That cockatoo certainly is one disturbing and abnormal individual. I just hope he is found and returned here."
"We've searched everywhere for him and the frog," said Joanna, her gaze turned to the cage in which Nigel and the frog (Gabi) were kept, or should be, "We've looked inside the building and outside on the premises and we've even checked the Maimed Animal Enclosure but no sign of them."
"I really have hoped that Nigel hadn't escaped into that enclosure since those Lear's macaws despise him so incredibly caustically," said Tulio, "In fact I have come to believe that their chick was the one who gave Nigel that NASTY scratch over the brow that we had to stitch up surgically," he then turned to the man and the woman, "Proceed with the checking on the four birds, Federico and Alejandra."
The pair nodded and left for the chamber. Then Nick came by.
"An' I'll go next door an' check on Luke an' his lil' family," said he, his voice tinted with the accent of his former home, Australia, and with that, he left for said destination. Tulio and Joanna smiled and resumed their jobs.
The two employees, Federico and Alejandra, entered the door to the artificial jungle breeding chamber, the very same chamber in which Blu met Jewel, and then Aurora, Bellatrix, Sirius and Ahsoka had met Zephyr, Brisa, Antares, Samara and Orion later on. As the pair walked in and shut the door behind them, a flash of gold went by as one of the precious and strange hawks flew past. That form landed on a tree branch and gazed at the two humans as they walked further into the room. It gazed at the two employees as they began to search for the four birds.
This individual was a golden fruithawk, a vegetarian hawk that ate mostly fruit and other plant material like a macaw but also dined on insects from time to time, unlike almost every other hawk species which fed on the flesh of other vertebrates like rodents and small birds. However, it was still classified as a bird of prey due to it being a hawk. This fruithawk had glistening golden plumage on its body, wings and tail which truly shone and glinted like metallic gold, hence its species name, 'golden fruithawk'. The feathers under its wings, the underwing coverts, however, were bright yellow. Its head and neck were also a vivid yellow like the sun or bright yellow starfruit and it had a fluffy mane of feathers flaring around its neck. Those feathers cascaded down to the chest on the front and were shorter at the back just below the nape. Two golden spots adorned its cheeks and a long flick of yellow feathers streaked back from its crown, somewhat like a cockatoo's crest when flattened but longer. This fruithawk had vivid green eyes matching the colour of fresh green leaves and it had a somewhat hulking build. His beak and feet were orange and his beak was tipped with darker orange. This individual was a male and he had a handsome appearance and he was a young adult fruithawk who was past adolescence age and ready for breeding. He was older than Carla, Bia and Tiago and their cohorts but younger than Blu, Jewel and the others. As the male fruithawk gazed at the two humans walking into the chamber, a hostile glint of fierce dislike appeared in his eyes. This fruithawk was the male fruithawk, Soren, and he was from Bahia so he was wild-born. The female fruithawk and intended mate, Katniss, was human-raised and was from Guyana. She had the same appearance and plumage features as Soren and she also had orange feet and beak but she was more slender, taller and larger than Soren (male hawks were often smaller than the females. The same applied to most owls), her yellow neck 'mane' fanned around the neck and did not extend down her front like Soren's did. Her crest was a long sheet that cascaded down the back of her head and neck and reached half-way down her back where it ended in a curl at the tips. Her eyes were brown like the colour of soil, or the eyes of Blu.
Soren had once been a part of a small flock of fruithawks in his home area of Bahia but like Blu and company in their pasts including Luke and Hauyne, he went through an incident that cost him his family and clan when he was a chick. However, it wasn't poachers like for Blu, Aurora, Sirius and Bellatrix, but loggers like Jewel and the others with her and a group of them had invaded the home of Soren and his tiny clan of golden fruithawks, destroying their home and orphaning Soren as most of his clan including his entire family had, unfortunately, perished in the incident. This led to Soren's caustic hatred of humans that was no different from that of what Jewel, Ruby, Antares, Samara, Zephyr, Brisa, Ruby and to a great extent, Orion and catching and bringing him here had been a real challenge for the Blue Bird Project conservationists. Like Jewel, Zephyr, Brisa, Antares and Samara and to some degree, Orion when they had been caught and brought here, Soren had lashed at his handlers and had put up a brutal fight with his beak and talons which were more damaging than a macaw's weapons. Fruithawks, despite being vegetarian and insectivorous, were still armed with deadly claws and talons like their meat-eating counterparts, only these were used in butchering the flesh of plant material and not the flesh of rodents and small birds. Because of this, his handlers had to use thick gloves to handle the hostile and aggressive Soren when importing him into the chamber. Now Soren, like Jewel and later Zephyr, Brisa, Samara, Antares and Orion before him, had been trying to find a way out but to his frustration, he had been unable to.
Soren's intended mate-to-be, Katniss, was quite the opposite of Soren in a number of ways. First off, she had been human-raised like Blu, Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix and Ahsoka and also Luke. Much like Soren, Katniss had been orphaned as a chick and had been captured by smugglers and taken to Guyana. Her human companion, a woman who lived there and was an ornithologist, had managed to rescue her from these poachers and had raised her as a foster bird much like how Joanna had done Ahsoka, even teaching her how to fly. Eventually, the woman had to give Katniss up and have her transferred to Tulio's Aviary due to the fruithawk being a member of a critically endangered species. It had been a very sad and emotional departure of Katniss from her human friend and unlike Linda, Matthew and his parents Brendan and May, Joanna and Nick (who raised Blu, Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix, Ahsoka and Luke respectively), the woman did not come with Katniss to Rio in Brazil as she felt that her foster fruithawk would be better off with a fresh start without her. Thus Katniss was used to the human environment which was the complete opposite to Soren, who despised human areas and humans in general, having an incredibly bigoted attitude that ALL humans were destructive creatures who did not care for the environment. However, that was not to say that Katniss was extremely aggressive and not laidback and lax like Blu had been during his time with Linda. Soren and Katniss, like Blu with Jewel and Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix with Zephyr, Brisa, Antares and Samara and to a far lesser degree, Ahsoka with Orion, did not get off on the right talon when they first met.
When Soren first met and introduced to Katniss, he tried to make the moves on her and that made disgust FLARE up within Katniss like a volcano, and she immediately attacked him. The fight was more violent even than Jewel's attack on Blu and had actually involved drawing some blood (though Jewel had stopped short of escalating it in to that territory after deciding to take mercy on Blu at the last minute when the poor male Spix macaw became EXTREMELY frightened. However, she did SEVERELY warn him that she WILL enter there if he did NOT show her respect but that's in the past now as they had become mates and parents) and Katniss actually did manage to inflict nasty claw marks on Soren and rip out some of his feathers. The fight was so violent in fact that Tulio and his observing employees had to quickly intervene before Katniss could severely injure Soren. They quickly rushed Soren out of the chamber to the male fruithawk's UTMOST chagrin and they had to restrain Katniss, though that was very difficult as she wanted to continue to tear Soren's feathers out. The fruithawks were kept apart for a while and Soren was treated for his injuries and was returned cautiously into the chamber. However, he had kept his distance from Katniss and had even developed a caustic dislike of her, especially after finding out that she had been human-raised (any human-raised animal Soren referred to as 'city freaks' and 'urban rats' which were just as offensive as Antares and Samara's former use of the word 'mud-pet', the anti-human-raised animal slur Rudi and his hostile group still used. The other clan led by Rodrigo, however, had also stopped using this term) and Katniss despised Soren as well, seeing him as a pervert and a 'dirty jungle boy'. The horrific first meeting of the two fruithawks escalating to the brutal fight between the two had caused worry among the conservationists and they wondered if the two will ever bond. However, there was a silver lining in the stormcloud existing between the two fruithawks. When Nigel intruded into the chamber, Soren did show a bit of concern for Katniss when the cockatoo targeted her and was happy that one of the Luna owls, Cassiopeia, had managed to attack and throw the cockatoo out, literally.
The two Luna owls, Cassiopeia and the male and intended mate-to-be, Aragorn, were both pure white in their plumages much like the male snowy owl that lived in icy Alaska (females had black stripes slashing through their plumage for camouflage in the trees where they nested). However, their wing flight feathers were silvery, as were a scatter of spots on their fronts, tips of their tail flight feathers and the rims around their faces, and both had grey beaks and feet similar in colour to granite. Cassiopeia had more of these markings on her front than Aragorn and was larger than he was as female owls were bigger than the males. Though the two looked almost the same in plumage colour, their features differed. Aragorn was smaller, stocky in build, had a flick of feathers on in crown and blue eyes while Cassiopeia, while also stocky, had a row of feathers flicking out from the rim of her head's base; from the sides and around the back and she had no other crest on her head. Cassiopeia's eye colour was yellow but unlike Aragorn, she only had one functioning eye, her right one. Like Soren, Cassiopeia and Aragorn came from the rainforest and had lost their home and flock to loggers. They had been rescued and brought here where they met Katniss and Soren. Unlike the two fruithawks, the pair had known each other since they were chicks as they had hatched and grown up in the same clan so they were used to each other and didn't mind each other's presence. However, they were NOT siblings to the gladness of the conservationists. Cassiopeia had lost her left eye during the loggers' invasion, caused by one of the explosions they had used to bring down bigger trees. That damaged left eye was replaced by a scar marked with an 'X' over it, rendering that eye permanently closed. Unlike Orion's father Augustus in the Amazon rainforest who had to wear a leaf-bandana to conceal the ugly damage due to the loss of that eye he suffered at the clutches of a harpy eagle when protecting some of his tribe members from the apex air predator, Cassiopeia's damage did not need concealing. The two Luna owls were grateful that there were some humans that cared but they ABSOLUTELY abhorred loggers, especially Cassiopeia who longed to take her anger out on any she found if she EVER found any to avenge the loss of her eye and her and Aragorn's clan. Both owls had befriended the fruithawks the moment they met them but had become totally disapproving of both of them: Soren for his inappropriate behaviour towards Katniss and his view of her as a 'city freak' based on her human-raised background, and Katniss for attacking Soren so violently, to the point of nearly severely injuring him.
From his perch, Soren glared with acidic dislike at Alejandra and Federico as they began to call out to him and the other three. Within moments, two flashes of white and silver and one of gold and yellow emerged from the trees and approached the two workers. However, Soren remained on his perch and scowled at the two owls, Cassiopeia and Aragorn, and the female fruithawk, Katniss, as they perched on a low branch in one of the other trees closest to the pair. Hissing, the male golden fruithawk opened his sparkling gold wings and flapped off, clearly not wanting to approach the two humans as they began to check on the other three. Soren's injuries inflicted on him by Katniss during their first but awry meeting thankfully didn't scar but Soren had required several days separated from the female fruithawk to allow time for his wounds to heal. After this, the workers had cautiously returned the fruithawk to the chamber and thankfully, no violent attacks had erupted between him and Katniss as the pair had kept themselves apart, but this was a worry, especially since the two were hostile to each other. The two golden fruithawks and two Luna owls had only been in Rio for a few months but Rafael had only just reported their finding to Blu and company in the Amazon via his phone.
Next door to Tulio's Aviary, in the Maimed Animals Enclosure, Nick had entered the main area where a variety of animals were, as the title of the enclosure described, too maimed to be returned to the jungle so this enclosure was their permanent home. Many of the animal inhabitants here were of rare species and almost all of them had irreparable injuries that rendered them to unsuitable to be returned to the wild. The artificial enclosure jungle was especially designed to be habitable for the maimed animals. The trees had ladders of various forms built next to them to allow the birds that had lost their ability to fly due to severe damage to their wings or wing apparatus to climb to the branches, though a few of the birds here were still able to fly and there were also other modifications to the artificial indoor jungle to suit the needs of the maimed animals present here as well. Across the artificial canopy higher up were wires for the primates and still-flying birds to perch on and swing from. The animal inhabitants were mostly birds and primates though there were a few reptiles and frogs here as well. The enclosure was strictly forbidden to predatory animals like snakes for the sake of the other animals. Any maimed predator of a rare species that could not be returned to the wild had to be taken to a place specialised for taking care of them elsewhere. Some of the animals here were animals rescued from poachers but had been kept in conditions SO severe that they could not be recovered enough to return to the wild where they would not be able to survive for very long. It was an excellent project to build this facility and it was an ideal tool for conserving rare species as well. One such inhabitant of a rare species who could not return to the wild was Luke the Lear's macaw, Nick's former pet and animal companion. He was resting in a tree hollow and Nick had gone over to him to check on him and his mate Hauyne and son Quaoar.
Luke was about the size of Blu, Jewel, Aurora and the rest of the adult Spix and glaucous macaws in their group. He had very dark blue feathers and the feathers on his face and chest were tinged a dark green a characteristic of his species, the Lear's macaw. His eyes were each enclosed in a yellow-orange ring of skin and his lower mandible was bordered by another piece of orange-yellow skin where it joined his skull, a beak lappet. Luke's beak and feet were black and he had a muscular build, green coloured eyes and a tassel of feathers atop his crown. Luke possessed a few very tragic souvenirs of his disturbing and incredibly violent fight with Nigel during his confrontation with the cockatoo to save Hauyne. His plumage was streaked with some scars, especially on his face and front, remains of the most severe wounds the Lear's macaw had received from the savage cockatoo that were too damaged to heal completely and his left side was completely different from any other bird. Luke only had his right wing, his left one having to be amputated as Nigel had damaged it beyond repair. Because he only had one wing, Luke cannot fly at all and his permanent home was now here, in the enclosure. His hollow was ideally built close to the ground with a short ladder leading to it to allow him easy access to it. Many hollows and artificially made cliff face holes were built this way for the flying birds that could no longer fly for same or similar reasons. Luke's hollow was large enough for a family of three and it had two rooms: one for Luke and his mate Hauyne and the other for Quaoar. Hauyne had all the same features as Luke and every other Lear's macaw but her dark green face mask did not extend down her front as in Luke's. Her eye rings and beak lappet were yellow and her beak and feet were dark grey. She had a slim build, blue eyes and a crest similar to Jewel except the feathers did not flick up at the ends, instead pointing straight down like in Bia, one of Blu and Jewel's daughters. Hauyne was largely unmarked and had both of her wings so she was still able to fly. However, because she could not live out in the jungle due to her permanently-grounded mate, Hauyne lives in this enclosure with their son Quaoar, though she sometimes took their son out on foraging trips outside the enclosure to teach him how to be a wild bird. Quaoar was currently in the hollow with his father as he had been grounded for hanging out with some of Rafael and Eva's highly naughty chicks and Hauyne was outside the enclosure, searching for food out in the real jungle for her mate and son. In most macaw families, it was usually the male who brought food back for the family and the female sometimes took her turn but because Luke was grounded for the rest of his life, Hauyne had to take on this responsibility all the time.
Luke in his hollow gazed with a smile at his human companion from his hollow as he knelt by the tree and talked to him. While Luke spent some time with his former owner Nick, Quaoar set in his bed-nest, a very sad and regretful look on his face. He was not allowed beyond the glass dome of the enclosure for a month as part of his punishment. Sadly, the teen Lear's macaw gazed up at his father and human friend and slumped into his bed-nest, gutted. While Nick continued to talk to Luke, on one of the wires above the artificial jungle, four feathered forms with large colourful beaks appeared and perched. However, they stopped when they saw Nick present and hung back to avoid interruption. These four toucans which were Diantha, Fabio, Cleo and Nemo who had come to visit the Lear's macaw family of three, gazed down at the Australian man as he continued to talk with his former pet. As the quartet of young toucans gazed down at Nick and Luke, a navy blue macaw with a dark green face and yellow eye brings and beak lappet appeared. Hauyne's talons clutched a mango and some berries for she had returned from a foraging trip but when she saw the four young toucans perched there on the wire, she perched on a nearby branch and gazed at them indignantly.
"Diantha, Fabio, Cleo and Nemo, what are you doing here?" asked the female Lear's macaw and Luke's mate, "You're supposed to be back at your MASSIVE toucan family's hollow."
"Oh, sorry Mrs Hauyne... um..." began Diantha, "We... well, I... uh... got into another NASTY argument with my parents about Mr Orion and his family... and we left to visit you three to get away from them..."
"But not before Marco and company attacked Diantha and drove her out of the hollow," added Nemo.
"And we just sneaked out and followed," put in Cleo. Fabio nodded in agreement. Hauyne's indignant face hardened and she rolled her eyes. However, the reason was not the four toucans' presence this time.
"That big blended toucan family CERTAINLY does have a problem," grumbled the female Lear's macaw, "It's probably their foul attitude towards that flying fox family after an incident involving their three older pups and the marmosets Blu and the others told me, Luke and Quaoar about shortly after our move to here along with Nick..."
"Yes," said Fabio, "Our rotten siblings got Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione into trouble with Mauro and his gang by framing them as the thieves of their knickknacks and their attackers with some fruit."
"Yes," added Diantha angrily, "and the marmoset gang got back at them by plunging them into a pile of rotting fruit and snapping a photo of them with which they spread throughout the forest and making the poor flying foxes a laughingstock."
"And to add more salt to the wound, our siblings spewed a pack of LIES to our parents and they TOTALLY believed them as easily as a bird believing a well-camouflaged grasshopper disguising as a leaf AS an actual leaf," put in Nemo, "And they accused Mr Orion and Mrs Ahsoka as being bad parents which culminated in the latter slapping Mom across the face. At least that's what Diantha here told us, anyway."
"Since then, the relationship between our family and theirs has been severely damaged," added Cleo, "Even a year later; our families still don't along at all."
"In fact when Mr Orion and Mrs Ahsoka answered the call, Dad (Rafael) and Mom (Eva) got VERY angry and they and the two flying foxes exchanged insults until Mr Blu and Mrs Jewel took over before things could escalate," added Fabio. Then Diantha's face formed a VERY sad look and she looked away and down.
"For this past number of months we have lived with that unresolved issue between us and the flying foxes," the colourful-beaked keel-billed/toco hybrid spoke in a broken voice, followed by a sniffle, "and still our parents believe Mr Orion and Mrs Ahsoka to be poor parents and have banned the fruit bats from EVER coming ANYWHERE near us and us going ANYWHERE near them. We plan on disobeying that command when the flying fox family DO come to Rio to apologise to them for the mess they had put them in because of our stupid siblings..."
"You... you don't get along with Mom and Dad either, do you, Mrs Hauyne?" asked Fabio, his gaze on the female Lear's macaw while Cleo and Nemo comforted Diantha as she wept over the state of their BIG family a bit.
"Not really," replied Hauyne reluctance, "Rafael and Eva tend to be... show-offs with the number of chicks including you four and I'm sure if they don't mean to be condescending but that's how I feel because I was only able to have one son, Quaoar."
"Why's that?" asked Cleo as she, Nemo and Diantha looked up at the Lear's macaw, the latter tearfully. Hauyne bowed her head and reluctantly explained but in a language appropriate for the four toucans' age.
"You're too young to know the details but to explain it in a way that is appropriate for your age, I was unable to have babies," said she, "I was only able to have Quaoar and that's IT. Then I went through a horrific medical emergency exclusive to us female birds and had to have surgery to save my life. Since then, I cannot have babies EVER again. But enough of this subject and no more questions on it. You'll know more when you're older. And besides their unintentional showing off of their MASSIVE number of kids, they have parenting problems and Luke and I have grounded our son Quaoar for a month for hanging out with some of them. By the way, why are you here?"
"We've come to visit you to get away from our troubled big family," explained Diantha again while the three younger ones exchanged looks, surprised that Hauyne and Luke's only son had got involved with their severely naughty older siblings. Then Hauyne frowned.
"But you shouldn't..." she began but then Luke's voice called her name. The five looked down and saw two male Lear's macaws, one large and the other small, on the floor at the foot of the ladder to the Lear's macaw family's low hollow. Nick had now left to return to Tulio's Aviary next door. Hauyne then smiled, clutched the mango and berries and dropped from the branch to Luke and Quaoar. Diantha, Fabio, Cleo and Nemo followed. After Hauyne and the four toucans touched down and the Lear's macaw family of three prepared to have their fruit meal, Luke and Quaoar's eyes caught sighted four black birds with massive colourful beaks.
"Diantha, Fabio, Cleo an' Nemo," asked Luke with a frown, an Australian accent, a testimony to where he had been raised, evident in his voice, "What are you doin' 'ere?"
"We've come here to visit," replied Fabio.
"Sorry to surprise you like this," added Cleo.
"I got into yet another heated argument with my parents over Mr Orion and his family," explained Diantha. Luke gazed at Hauyne with a frown.
"That big toucan family is honestly nuthin' but trouble, my sapphire," said he as he held up some berries while Hauyne sliced up the mango with her beak, teaching a still-sullen Quaoar this method, "We had to ground our son for a month for involvin' himself wh' them. We had also forbidden Iris from takin' our son out on trips for a good while."
"I'm gonna do that until she can be trusted in keeping our son out of trouble," said Hauyne with a frown. Quaoar gazed at his father and then his mother sadly and prepared to eat some of the mango. Diantha did not flinch at this statement though Cleo, Fabio and Nemo slightly did. However, their older sister had better understanding of the issues occurring in their family for she was older and knew the other siblings better hence why she did not react to Luke's statement.
"Mom and Dad had been talking negatively about Mr Orion and his family again," Diantha said, "since they are likely gonna come and visit Rio sometime later this year, we had been STRICTLY forbidden in having ANY form of contact with them."
The Lear's macaws gazed at the four toucans.
"Not even talkin' on the phone to 'em?" asked Luke with surprise. Diantha shook her head while Cleo, Fabio and Nemo lowered their heads sadly. These three wanted to meet Orion's family for they hadn't met the flying foxes met. Then tears began to well within Diantha's eyes as another thought regarding the family of winged mammals came to mind. "Mr Orion and Mrs Ahsoka had recently had two more pups, identical twin sons Ganymede and Gordie, and I'm particularly worried for those two..."
Quaoar looked up at his parents in surprise as he swallowed a piece of mango.
"Bats can have twins?" he spoke, "I thought they ONLY had one pup at a time."
"It has been known t' happen but it is quite rare," said Luke, "A mother bat can only carry and nurse one pup at a time."
"Well, I look forward to meeting those two new additions to Orion and Ahsoka's family," said Hauyne with a bit of excitement. Then she took a bite out of another piece of mango. Diantha resumed the main thread. "Anyway, as I was saying, Mom and Dad were talking negatively about the flying fox family again and all fires broke loose when they mentioned the two new pups they had had and 'how they were likely to be as bad as their older brother and sisters' and when I went to defend the flying fox family."
"The argument was frightening, honestly, and the final leaf came when our older brothers and sisters, especially Carlos and Sofia, came in and attacked her when Diantha tried to mention that THEY were the ones responsible for the marmoset incident and the framing of Sandalwood and his sisters," put in Nemo.
"And when she was driven out, we followed once things had calmed down after Dad yelled at our siblings once again," added Fabio. A look of concern came upon Quaoar's face.
"After witnessing how naughty that lot is including their tendency to direct the blame of their antics to others like they had done that group of green-winged macaws for the messing of Miss Tiny and her group's home log and the vandalism of their mini-gardens, Mom and Dad," the teen Lear's macaw said, "I think I can see why Mr Orion and his family have such a problem with them," as she spoke, human talking interrupted the conversation. The four young toucans and the three Lear's macaws turned their gazes to some employees as they went about looking under the artificially grown shrubs, ferns and into the bushes. There were four of these humans and two of them were Nick and Joanna.
"Are you sure the cockatoo an' the frog can't have come int' here, Maggie and Alejandro?" asked the human with the Australian accent, Nick, as he looked under a fern, "You know what my Lear's macaw companion is like with that savage bird as I was until Tulio told me I'd be fired if I continued abusin' him."
"They are NOWHERE to be seen or found in or around Tulio's Aviary, Nick," said Maggie as she came back after peering into a hollow, "We've looked EVERYWHERE in that place."
"When we found those two missing from their cage, we initially thought they, especially the cockatoo, had gone to bother the Luna owls and the golden fruithawks in the rare species breeding chamber again to our UTMOST horror. Thankfully, they hadn't been in there..."
The toucans and the Lear's macaws exchanged looks.
"During our big family's previous visit of those four newcomers, Miss Cassiopeia told us how that rotten cockatoo had tried to attack Miss Katniss but she managed to attack that sicko and throw him out of the room, literally," said Diantha.
"She didn't half inflict some NASTY claw marks on him as well," put in Fabio. Cleo and Nemo nodded in agreement. Then a caustic glare of festering scorn appeared on Hauyne's face.
"Good for her," growled the female Lear's macaw with a voice tone full of acid against Nigel, "But I think Cassiopeia could have done better, maybe BLIND that piece of dung in the process."
"An' if Nigel had gotten lost in the jungle, I hope he becomes a meal for one of the predators there, like a venomous snake or sommat," put in Luke. Quaoar who shared his parents' scorn of the infamous cockatoo, looked on in agreement.
"He cost you your left wing and consequently, your flight, didn't he?" asked Fabio.
"FABIO!" Diantha, Nemo and Cleo yelled at him, making Fabio flinch.
"THAT is an EXTREMELY insensitive thing to SAY!" finished Diantha. Fabio then bowed his head in shame.
"It's very true," said Luke, "so you need not yell at your little brother, you three. That crested worm was torturin' Hauyne 'ere an' I engaged him in battle to save her. However, he mauled me like a savage cat resultin' in my left wing havin' to be removed."
"And to hear that that cockatoo is here kept next door, I wanted to go over there and claw him to death," growled Hauyne caustically, "But I knew that Tulio and his team wouldn't allow it so I stayed here," she then gazed down at Quaoar, "We had forbidden our son here from going next door and had to ground him when he disobeyed and met that cockatoo but I am proud that he had managed to give that dung beetle a NASTY claw mark over the brow such that he needed surgery."
Quaoar said nothing and continued to eat his berries and mango.
"We encountered that Nigel beastie ourselves, once," said Diantha before nodding to Fabio, Cleo and Nemo, "These three had only fledged and Mom and Dad (Eva and Rafael) took us to Tulio's Aviary to introduce them to the area and believe me, when we came across that cockatoo in his cage with his frog friend, what he bombarded us with was unmentionable."
"And I believe Miss Cassiopeia and the other three are now on that cockatoo's caustic hit list just like us," said Fabio. He then shuddered at the memory of seeing Nigel and experiencing his rancour for exotic birds for the first time and Rafael had told him, Cleo and Fabio that what came out of that ROTTEN cockatoo's beak was stuff that they should have NEVER, EVER heard and that it was TOTALLY disturbing. Cleo and Nemo then gazed at Nick, Joanna, Alejandro and Maggie as they regrouped and prepared to leave the enclosure, having given up searching for Nigel and the frog and concluding that they hadn't escaped into here. Just then, another voice, this time a screech, exploded above the seven, pulling their gazes skyward. Dread and anger washed over four of them, the young toucans when they saw the squawkers, two toucans with a blend of toco and keel-billed traits, hovered above them, their glares resting on them. Quaoar quivered at the sight of the two toucans, recognising them as being from the naughty group he had foolishly joined a while ago.
"Oh, aye, Darla and Carlos have come to pick us up," grumbled Diantha sourly, "We'd better go."
And with that and without saying another word, the four toucans reluctantly opened their wings and took off to fly to the pair of toucans waiting for them in the air which were indeed Darla and Carlos. Then as the six toucans left one of the open panes of the skylight dome, Hauyne decided to investigate something.
"Stay here with your father, Quaoar," she told her son and launched into flight. Hauyne then hovered just near the glass as Diantha, Cleo, Fabio and Nemo left with Darla and Carlos, the latter who spoke.
"I hope you are NOT gonna meet those dog-faced rats with wings, you four," growled the oldest son and the twenty-plus chicks of Rafael and Eva, "'Cos you know that Mom and Dad have strictly forbidden us from associating ourselves with them?"
"Yes, NUTHIN' but trouble they are, especially their three older children after what they had done to Mauro and his marmoset gang around last year," put in Darla. Hauyne flinched at what had come out of those two toucans' beaks but she flinched even more the second time after Diantha screeched back at the pair.
"SHUT UP ABOUT MR ORION AND HIS FAMILY, YOU TWO," screeched the colourful-beaked toucan, "SHUT... UP!" the six toucans were soon out of earshot when Hauyne flew out of the open pane. She then returned into the enclosure and to Luke and Quaoar, a concerned look forming on her face.
"I do NOT like what those two toucans had just said about Orion, Ahsoka and their pups," the female Lear's macaw murmured under her breath to herself.