This story is one of love, loss, freedom, and the little things.
The first two paragraphs are a recap, and can be skipped with no consequences, though for the sake of the story I'd like to tell, things are different, so it's advised that you do still read the second paragraph.
Love is fickle. Love is painful. Love is...well...lovely. A time ago, I thought love was impossible, improbable, inconceivable. The dank, dark, desolate, destructive force that simply turned all that might be good into a vacuous void of sorrow and despair.
Until I'd met Blu. I met Blu, that adorable...awkward little bird, the only other Macaw of my kind. Brought to Brazil by a crazy Ornithologist named Tulio, and his bookworm owner Linda. He was a little weird at first, strange and just wanting to go back to Linda. But then we had a whole experience together, good and bad. He's sweet as can be, smarter than the average bear, and to even my own surprise he's a forced to be reckoned with. Blu saved my life, on a plane roughly 3 years ago. We were going to be smuggled off on a plane by some poachers. It was a little humiliating to be caught by then considering how stupid they were. Thankfully, Blu got free and set the rest of the birds free too... and y'know it was something I really didn't expect from him at the time. He didn't exactly seem like the heroic 'rescue everyone' type when I first met him, he seemed more of the...'hide your head under the sand' type. But...then we fought that bird Nigel, and he knocked a steel cage onto my wing, and it broke. Goodness that was embarrassing, and then I fell out of the plane too, and he had to catch me and fly us to safety...did I mention he had NEVER flown before that moment? And he kissed me then too...he kissed me while we flew...it was then that I knew that he was the bird I wanted to spend my life with.
I never counted on finding love...but I guess it's one of those things that finds you. Speaking of things finding you, we found ourselves 6 months later with 3 little hatchlings, Tiago, Carla, and Bia. Our beautiful daughters, and our impeccably handsome son. I have to say, my happiest moment was seeing those chicks smiling faces when they finally hatched, almost brings a tear to my eye just thinking about now. And my saddest moment, was definitely when they flew the coop, 2 and a half years later. They come by every so often, but...they've got their own lives now. And now, everyone should be caught up.
Jewel stirred awake, pulled from a deep sleep by the sun shining down into the pair of Spix's Macaw's tree. Jewel groaned, turning her head away from the sun, covering her eyes with her wings. The Macaw didn't feel like getting out of bed today, so she tried her best to get back to sleep...but then she realized she itched...then she realized it was hot...now it was cold...ugh, she just couldn't get comfortable. Jewel reluctantly opened her eyes again, and peered around the now brightly-lit nest inside the hollowed tree trunk they called home. Blu was leaned against Jewel, his beak open wide, tongue lazily hanging from the side of his beak as he slept peacefully, if a little awkwardly.
Jewel stifled a laugh, and gently prodded Blu in the chest with her wing. Blu stirred a little, and snorted, getting a bit of spit on Jewel's neck. She rolled her eyes and prodded Blu a little harder in the chest, and now he started awake, having always been a light sleeper. "Wha- Jewel are-...oh! Good morning!"
Jewel smiled warmly at her partner. "Good morning, sleepyhead..." she chirped quietly and rubbed her head against his neck. Blu gave a flickering smile, and leaned back against her, trading loving coos.
"Pancakes~?" Blu asked, pulling away from her and stretching his wings wide to shake the remnants of sleep off.
"With blueberries!" Jewel chimed, and began to do a couple quick stretches of her own.
Blu smirked at her, and chirped teasingly. "And I thought you preferred to forage?"
Jewel rolled her eyes, and smiled at Blu. "Sometimes...I'll indulge you...and pancakes are pretty good." She admitted, and finished her stretches off, finally completely awake. Jewel crouched down for a moment, and a wicked grin grew across her face. Staring at the exit to their enclosed nest, she chirped to Blu. "Betcha I can-" she began, but was interrupted, and thrown off balance by a blue blur of...Blu.
"Beatcha there!?" Blu finished for her, laughing all the while, and began to jet away, flying out of view.
"Wh- hey! No fair!" Jewel laughed, and followed him out.
It was a clear day, crimson beams of light cast down on the green jungle, illuminating the waking world, rudely pulled from its slumber by the none other than the sun. For miles and miles, there were jungle trees, untamed and wild, the air rushing by Jewel's ears howled as she sped after Blu, the lovebirds laughing as they flew. The pair raced East, towards the sun. Red and orange coated the lovers, now side-by-side as they flew, the blue birds now a deep red. Jewel and Blu flew up and around, side to side, over and under. They touched the treetops with their wingtips and laughed, playing as they went.
"You got a head start, but I'm gonna beat you, Blu!" Jewel yelled after him, interrupting herself with her own laughter.
Blu laughed back at her. "Not likely! You were too slow to start, and we fly at the same speed!" He threw his prediction at her.
Blu and Jewel finally saw it, Linda and Tulio's house, where the window was always open, and the couple had a habit of coming in and helping themselves to whatever they could.
Blu landed on the windowsill first, and began to step toward the open window, but Jewel barreled by him, still in-flight. She laughed, making a few victory laps around the room.
"Hey! That's hardly fair!" Blu cried out indignantly, "I landed first!"
"I got through the window first! And you had a head start!" Jewel chirped back at him, and landed gracefully on the kitchen counter, she struck a proud pose. Blu couldn't help but smile, and he fluttered over to a cabinet and pulled it open with both legs. He grabbed a normal sized mixing bowl, and set it down on the table. Jewel followed his lead, as they'd done more times than she'd like to admit, to make the pancakes, and they got cooking.
Jewel tapped her claw on the T.V. remote, flipping past all the boring channels...
"News...news...Nascar...kid's show...Titanic...Old kid's show...Rocky and Bullwinkle..." Jewel squawked boredly, turning her head to look at Blu, who was busy setting the last of the human-sized pancakes onto the oversized plate. "I don't know how people can watch this stuff, it's just boring program after boring program..."
"What about Football?" Blu chimed.
"Well wouldn't you rather watch it in the stadium?" Jewel retorted.
"It's nice to not have t- oof!" Blu was cut short, as a pancake he made far too big crushed him underneath it.
Jewel watched amusedly for a moment, shaking her head.
After a few seconds...Blu poked his head up through a now-bird-sized hole in the pancake, a half-eaten blueberry resting on top of his head, like a helmet. "They're ready! And delicious. Mm." Blu ran his tongue around his beak and took a bite out of the pancake he was trapped in.