Chapter 1- prologue
One year after Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix, Ruby and Ahsoka and their families' journey into the Amazon Rainforest and the fire, the group has moved permanently into the rainforest sanctuary, now called the Sanctuary de Amazon, and have made it their permanent home. Aurora, her mate Zephyr and their five chicks Justin, Charlotte, Matilda, Virgil and Eustace, and Zephyr's sister Brisa have moved in with the Spix macaw tribe with Blu, Jewel, Carla, Bia and Tiago while Sirius, his mate Samara and their four chicks Tristan, Quincy, Sapphire and Trixie and Bellatrix, her mate Antares and their three chicks Levi, Aiden and Phoebe moved in with the glaucous macaws that had chosen to live with Augustus' mixed-species tribe including Sirius and Bellatrix's parents Alvin and Isabella and new brother and sister Pietro and Wanda. Ahsoka, her mate Orion and their three children Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione had moved in with the flying fox clan led by Orion's father Augustus and mother Melissa while Ruby the scarlet macaw, her blue-and-gold mate Ferdinand and their hybrid Catalina chicks Opal and Sheldon had moved in with Felipe's tribe. However, the group including Blu and his family had not forgotten their now-secondary home, Rio, and had plans to visit the city every summer and every now and then. The group had taken their first summer trip to Rio a few months after the fire and once their time there was over, they returned to the Sanctuary de Amazon.
The offspring of Blu and company have grown
The offspring of Blu and company had grown somewhat over the past year. The macaw chicks were now young teens while Ahsoka and Orion's two older pups, Sandalwood and Acerola, were nearly young adult flying foxes for flying foxes matured earlier than macaws. Hermione, their younger sister, however, was still a teen pup though she was now bigger and had left her mother's breast completely, having past the weaning period. Apart from their somewhat change in size, the macaw chicks remained largely the same in appearance and the main interests in many have become more obvious. While the other macaw chicks had grown, one glaucous macaw, the youngest chick of Sirius and Samara, Trixie, remained smaller than her siblings Tristan, Quincy and Sapphire and cousins Levi, Aiden and Phoebe. Though she was now a teen like her cohorts, she was shorter than the average teen glaucous macaw and was only about the size of an older chick. Despite this, she was now strong enough to fly by herself most times without having to ride on the backs of her parents or 'aunts' and 'uncles' including Orion and Ahsoka, though she was sometimes carried during the long flight between Rio and the Sanctuary de Amazon. Trixie's progress was indeed a tremendous joy for her massive family and extended family, especially Sirius, Samara, Tristan, Quincy and Sapphire. When Alvin, Isabella, Pietro and Wanda saw how small Trixie was compared to the 'normal' sized glaucous macaw teen such as her older siblings and cousins, they had been surprised but they were glad that she was thriving despite her smaller size or dwarfism as the scientific minded members like Blu, Bia and Quincy called it.
Milo and Ellie's new phase of parenthood
During their first summer Rio trip, Aurora and company had celebrated the birthdays of many of their children and had spent some time with their Dalmatian friends Milo and Ellie. The Dalmatian couple's first litter of ten, who were now young adults, had all been sold on to other owners with the eldest, Sunspot, being sold to Tulio and Linda's family as a pet for them, especially Fernando. And after their last puppy, Scottie, had been sold to a family who lived in downtown Rio, Milo and Ellie had set to having their second litter which consisted of five puppies, half the size of their first litter, and had given all five of them names starting with the letter 'K', following the naming convention of their first litter whose names all began with 'S'. Additionally, Sunspot had set up a city dog-and-cat only club with a new girlfriend, Titania who was a Dalmatian like him and his family and was around his age, and a vegetarian cat friend named Vegetal.
A horrific incident giving Orion and his family the short end of the stick
Besides visiting their Dalmatian friends, Aurora, Blu and company went to visit and reunite with Rafael and his MASSIVE family, and Nico, Pedro, Chip-I-Am and Luiz the bulldog, though Orion and Ahsoka did not want to meet with Rafael and Eva due to their rocky relationship with the toucans, especially since the pair had had yet another clutch of chicks to the dismay of Aurora and company, especially the flying foxes, but the relationship between the flying fox and blended toucan families had soured even further to the point of almost becoming enemies by a horrific event that had occurred during the first week of Aurora, Blu and company's stay in Rio, happening between Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione and the rambunctious toucan chicks, many who were now older, also having grown into teens much like Blu and company's chicks. The toucan chicks excluding a few who were well-behaved such as Diantha, had landed Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione into a LOT of trouble with Mauro and his marmoset gang by pelting the group of primates with fruit and stealing their loot and planting it on the three pups to direct the marmosets' anger and blame at them. The marmosets then put the three pups through a severely humiliating ordeal by shoving them into a pile of rotting fruit complete with fruit flies buzzing around it and then taking a picture of them as they struggled in that messy and slimy heap, using stolen old-fashioned flash cameras to produce photos, rather than digital cameras and Iphones which stored the images in their memory. Once the mean marmosets had got enough pictures of the poor pups, they then distributed the photos the through Tijuca Forest, making a laughingstock of the three pups to their UTMOST upset and to the amusement of the toucan kids. After finding out what had happened, Orion and Ahsoka, together with the adult macaws including Blu and Jewel, had gone to confront Rafael and Eva but the twenty-plus chicks had lied to their parents that the pups had pinched the marmosets' loot and pelted them with fruit themselves and Eva had told the bats to get their pups (or delinquent winged furballs as Eva called them) disciplined, resulting in anger exploding through the macaws and Orion and Ahsoka, but the latter two especially. Ahsoka, enraged, then shoved and slapped the keel-billed toucan hard across the face and called her an irresponsible mother and severely insulted her screechy 'singing' voice by calling her a big-beaked banshee who sounded like she had sat in a rosebush to the extreme fear of the chicks and the OUTRAGE of Rafael who then told the bats to NEVER come ANYWHERE near their hollow again. The macaws, who had acted in UTMOST astonishment, also agreed with Ahsoka and Orion to a degree and had to take the flying foxes away from the toucans' hollow, leaving Rafael to soothe his keel-billed mate's severely hurt feelings and pride in her singing voice. Since the incident, the flying foxes had vowed to stay well AWAY from the toucans and the macaws had forbidden their chicks from mixing with the toucan kids apart from a few, such as Diantha. These well-behaved toucan chicks had been severely ashamed of their rambunctious siblings for landing Sandalwood and his sisters in serious trouble with the marmosets and then lie about them causing the marmosets trouble to their parents. Though Orion and Rafael's families had fallen into a nasty feud, their enmity was not as caustic as the enmity some of the group had Nigel thankfully. Ferdinand, Sirius, Bellatrix, Aurora, Zephyr, Antares, Samara and Ruby had decided to suspend their friendship with Rafael and his family for a while, while Blu and Jewel kept their friendship with the toco toucan, hoping that the friendship between him and the rest of the group would be restored on the condition that the toco and keel-billed parents do SOMETHING about their misbehaving kids. Because of what the toucans chicks had put the pups through, Orion's family now had to suffer being a laughingstock to many of the inhabitants of Tijuca Forest, including among the younger members, the toucan chicks having gossiped about the flying fox pups and made things worse.
A family of Lear's macaws who had moved to Rio from Peru
Despite this horrible incident, Blu and company had befriended a new family of macaws, a family of three Lear's. They were a male named Luke, a female named Hauyne and their son, Quaoar. Luke was Blu's age and Hauyne was slightly younger than Blu and Jewel, possibly around Aurora, Sirius and Bellatrix's age and the pair were brought in from Iquitos, Peru, where the pair had met and became mates. Like Blu, Aurora, Sirius and Bellatrix, Luke was a former pet who had been smuggled out of Brazil as a chick, like the former four had been, but instead of being taken to the United States or Europe, he ended up in Australia where he was found, rescued and raised by a human named Nick. However, after less than fifteen years, the amount of time Blu spent with Linda, the pair had to travel to Peru so that Luke could meet and breed with Hauyne who had been rescued from smugglers by a bird conservation group in Iquitos. They eventually became mates after a series of misadventures which like Blu and Aurora's group, involved smugglers and Nigel and they had a single son named Quaoar, but conceiving him had been difficult. Their backstory will be explored further later. The trio of Lear's macaws had been unable to accompany Blu, Aurora and the others back to the Amazon as we shall also see later in the story when their history and their misadventures shall be discussed.
Back in the Sanctuary de Amazon, Brisa and Roberto, and Felipe and Pearl become parents
While Blu, Aurora and the others were in Rio, back in the Sanctuary de Amazon, Brisa, Zephyr's sister and Aurora's sister-in-law, had remained behind to continue dating Roberto, the pair having their own adventures including having to deal with some difficult situations such as the involvement of Myrtle, Jewel's enemy, who kept trying to worm her way into the relationship in an attempt to take Roberto away from Brisa and make him her mate and stepdad to Aguamarina. However, Roberto refused to even associate with the bratty macaw and things escalated to a climax when Myrtle and Brisa got into a vicious fight which was abruptly halted when Roberto clawed the brat across the face to protect his beloved, leading to Myrtle getting banished from the tribe by Eduardo along with her daughter for their behaviour and she left and joined Rudi's small clan of glaucous macaws. It took some time for Brisa to recover from her injuries, among them a sprained wing and by the time Blu and the others returned, Brisa had recovered, regained her ability to fly and had become Roberto's mate. Eventually, the couple had a clutch of two eggs to the utmost gladness of Blu and company, especially Zephyr and his and Brisa's parents, Viento and Gael, their father and mother respectively, and cousin Nuvem. Zephyr looked forward to becoming an uncle while Viento and Gael looked forward to having two more chicks to their grandchildren. Now Roberto and Brisa had become the proud parents of two chicks, a son named Finnick and a daughter named Lavendulan which was the name of a vivid blue mineral Blu had mentioned and Brisa immediately took a liking to it, having seen a picture of this mineral in one of Bia's books on the subject. At roughly the same time, in the red tribe, Felipe and Pearl had become the parents of three chicks, a son named Luca and two daughters, Realgar and Spinel. Their arrival had provided Ruby and Ferdinand three full-blooded scarlet macaw nephew and nieces and Opal and Sheldon, cousins to the gladness of the blended macaw family and their friends including Roberto and his family who had the three scarlet macaw chicks become 'cousins' to his two chicks, Finnick and Lavendulan to symbolise his friendship with Felipe and Pearl which formed after the caustic enmity and vendetta between the Spix and red macaw tribes (and Felipe had been Roberto's main enemy) had been dissolved.
Blu, Jewel, Orion and Ahsoka have new additions to their families
And while Roberto and Brisa were occupied with the new chapter of parenthood, two of the main couples, Blu and Jewel, and Orion and Ahsoka, had set to having another clutch of eggs and another pup, and a clutch of three eggs had appeared in the former's nest and the latter, a typical pup bump all expectant mother bats bore when with pup gradually showed itself. When the eggs hatched, they birthed Blu and his mate's two additional sons, Neptune, named after a planet which was also blue, and Arrokoth, and daughter Chrysocolla who Blu had named after another blue-green mineral. At roughly the same time, Ahsoka gave birth to identical twin sons Ganymede and Gordie after a five-month pregnancy to the surprise of her family and friends, including Ahsoka herself for she and Orion had been expecting a single pup. Twins were uncommon in bats but it had been known to happen, but twins were a big challenge for the mother to care for both of them. In the Amazon flying fox clan, whenever twins were born, help was always given to ease the burden on the mother bat and her mate. One was feeding the twins which the mother can only do one at a time. When she suckled one twin, the other was cared for by a member of a family or friend, sometimes even a bird or pterosaur. Another was carrying the pups during flight. A mother bat cannot carry them both on her breast at the same time so while she carried one, the other was carried either by the father or an older sibling or a friend of the family, including a bird or pterosaur. In Ahsoka's case, Orion and his parents, Augustus and Melissa who were glad to have two more grandsons added to their family, and also Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione and even the macaw friends had helped raised both Ganymede and Gordie. While Ahsoka suckled or carried one, the other was carried or cared for. Despite the challenges raising twins brought, the arrival of their two new brothers had brought significant joy for Ahsoka and her family, especially Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione and the mental wounds inflicted on them by the toucan chicks back in Rio had pretty much vanished. As for Aurora, Sirius, Bellatrix and Ruby and their respective mates Zephyr, Samara, Antares and Ferdinand, they had decided against having any more chicks. Zephyr, Aurora, Sirius and Samara's main reason for this was the size of their initial broods with five for the former and four for the latter and they didn't want too many chicks to tend to especially now that their initial broods were approaching adolescence. If these two couples were to have any more chicks, they would be overburdened and Aurora, despite her love for having chicks, knew that very well, unlike the less-sensible Rafael and Eva back in Rio. By now, that blended toucan couple now have almost thirty... THIRTY chicks!
A brief history on the glaucous macaw flocks
Although it was a tremendous joy in having new family members being born with two flying fox pups and five chicks being added to Blu and company's central group, Roberto now having become part of it through his pairing with Brisa, in addition to their friends having chicks such as Felipe and Pearl having Luca, Realgar and Spinel, the central group also had to deal with some trouble and it was not just from Myrtle and Aguamarina for Blu and Jewel, their first-brood chicks Carla, Bia and Tiago and their newly hatched second-brood chicks Neptune, Arrokoth and Chrysocolla. That trouble came from the other group of glaucous macaws that had moved to a secluded area of the Sanctuary de Amazon away from the rest of the inhabitants based on their hatred of humans and ANY animal that had ties and associations with humans, which they derogatorily called 'mud-pets'. That flock was led by Rudi but before, this flock and the flock that lived in Augustus and Melissa's mixed-species tribe used to be a single flock before they split up shortly after the fire over a year ago. The single glaucous macaw flock had been homeless after losing their original home to loggers but shortly after the fire and moving onto the Sanctuary de Amazon, the glaucous macaw clan had split with Rudi's flock moving to their area and the other group, led by Rodrigo and his mate Ceu whose daughter's name was Neytiri, moving in with Augustus and Melissa's mixed-species tribe. The division had been caused by the glaucous macaw clan's views on humans.
Rodrigo and Ceu's clan used to HATE humans like Rudi's clan but now have a better view of them though they still despised loggers and poachers and any human that abused animals. They had also become nicer and more respectful to any glaucous macaw and other animal that has any ties with humans, be it positive or negative, and had become more accepting of those animals among them Bellatrix and Sirius and had included them into their clan, along with their mates Antares and Samara and their chicks, and also non-glaucous macaws such as Blu, Roberto and Ahsoka the flying fox. They had also completely forsaken using the offensive anti-human associated animal slur 'mud-pet', which was another positive for this sub-clan. Rudi's group, on the other branch, had developed an even more CAUSTIC view of humans and had begun to LOATHE 'mud-pets' even more, blaming them for the fiery disaster and they ESPECIALLY loathed Sirius, Bellatrix and Blu. Though they had told the three tribes and co-inhabitants that they will be living in a secluded place away from them with strict intrusion rules set up to keep them separate from the others, some of the members of that group did not obey these rules and had begun to intrude into the territories of the three tribes to cause trouble. Rudi himself had become a LOT worse, especially in his antagonism towards formerly-domesticated animals and he especially LOATHED Eduardo having a 'mud-pet' for a son-in-law and also Augustus and Melissa, a 'mud-pet bat' for a daughter-in-law. The amplification of his hatred of humans, animals with ties to them and ALL things human had degenerated into caustic rancour as corrosive as any strong acid has stemmed from the fire and the loss of his mate Valeria, and that rancour had taken control of Rudi and put him on a quest of revenge against 'all mud-pets' and humans, and he especially loathed his brother Antares and cousin Samara for pairing up with 'mud-pets, and also blamed them for the loss of his mate and the splitting of his clan. Further, he had paired up with a female glaucous macaw with an equally bad attitude and caustic level of hatred of the subject of humans, Tremaine who had some chicks from her first pairing, but had lost her mate to the fire like Rudi. Rudi and Tremaine's pairing had brought the two families with EXTREMELY corrosive views on humans together, resulting in Rudi's daughters from his first pairing with Valeria, Millie and Tillie, who also loathed Sirius, Bellatrix and their families and friends, especially the chicks and pups, having a stepmother and some stepsiblings. In addition, Rudi and Tremaine had chicks of their own to add to their family. Worse, this group of glaucous macaws had welcomed any outcasts from the three tribes, most of them macaws but a few, other birds such as falcons and toucans, and even a few flying foxes, into their group. Among them were Myrtle and Aguamarina from the Spix macaw tribe who joined them willingly and had told Rudi all about Blu and company, effectively betraying the group and worsening their enmity with Jewel to the point of it becoming as corrosive as Jewel's enmity with Nigel. In the process, Millie, Tillie, their half-siblings and stepsiblings had formed a rogue group of friends to cause trouble for Blu and company's offspring, and Aguamarina had been welcomed into that group for she loathed Blu and Jewel's offspring and their friends and wanted to make life miserable for them. Then once the rogue group had formed, Rudi and company began to target and severely bully any animal they knew had a domestic or human-tied background and unfortunately, among their main targets were Blu and company, especially Antares, Samara and their families including Alvin, Isabella, Wanda and Pietro due to them being the family of their two most loathed glaucous macaws, Sirius and Bellatrix. And despite constant reprimands, Rudi and company continued to cause the other animals on the Sanctuary de Amazon no end of trouble.
Life continues for Blu and company, and new friends for Carla, Bia, Tiago and their group
Despite problems caused by that troublesome flock of birds and flying foxes led by Rudi's glaucous macaw flock, Blu and company continued their life in the Sanctuary de Amazon. While Blu and Jewel raised their three new chicks Neptune, Arrokoth and Chrysocolla, the first brood they actually had in the Amazon Rainforest for their older three chicks had been born in Rio, and Ahsoka and Orion were occupied with Ganymede and Gordie, the first pups they had also in this area, Carla, Bia, Tiago and company had formed a circle of friends who would have frequent get-together sessions to talk, share news of events happening in their tribes and to support each other or to play together. The circle of friends included the new friends of Sandalwood, Acerola and Hermione such as Connie, a female Amazon flying fox from the flying fox clan who Sandalwood was dating, and Esmeralda, a great green macaw youngster from the green macaw clan. Some of the central group members had also begun dating. Carla was dating Justin while Tiago dated Matilda. Bia was dating a male macaw named Raul who seemed to take a like in the chick's interest in science and nature to Virgil's slight jealousy. Charlotte and Eustace, their two other siblings, were also dating chicks their age with the former dating a male named Azul and the latter, Turquesa who was the daughter of the main lead sentry macaw of the Spix macaw tribe, Maximillian. Some of the other members of Carla, Bia and Tiago's immediate extended family were also dating with Tristan dating Neytiri and Trixie, to everyone's gladness, dating a male macaw named Volo who seems to accept Trixie despite her small size, and Sheldon was dating Petunia, the scarlet/green-winged hybrid daughter of Ramon, a scarlet macaw and Petunia's father, and Dani, Pertunia's green-winged mother and Ramon's mate. However, the couple had been against Petunia associating herself with boy macaws and as usual were overprotective of her, and Petunia was beginning to show signs of exasperation and rebellion. Though she was old enough and sensible enough now, her parents were still overprotective of her and they even restricted her association with Carla and the rest to short periods of time, adding to her frustrations. Things were quite well with Blu and company. However, that may change as trouble from Rudi and his group continue to bother them, and they may even have to return to Rio early to get away from the group as Eduardo, Felipe and Augustus had advised the group.