This story was made back in October as an entry for a writing competition that took place on the Rio discord server, and has since undergone some fixes. Special thanks to OrangeMacawWorld and I AM BIG J for beta reading.
Dark, moonless night — the type where stars shine the brightest. The rainforest had long fallen silent, the whistles of wind strolling through the sole exception.
In the thickness of the jungle, right beside a humble cottage, a birdhouse was nailed to a tree. At the front, the box had a small circular cut-out, and a wide, balcony-like plank.
Inside, Jewel sat huddled on straw matting, her beak buried in the plumage of her upper back. However comfortable a position it may have been, she wasn't asleep; one of her eyes was open, staring out the entrance hole.
One could barely hear the wind outside, yet it rocked the branches of canopies visible through the entrance.
Her senses heightened. For some reason, they did. She dug her beak out of her back.
Quiet, rhythmic sounds faded into earshot, getting louder with each pulse.
Wingbeats.
She got up, fixated on the entrance.
As the beats reached the immediate outside of the box, they were silenced by a light knock, its source obscured by a wall.
A beaked head of cobalt hue peeked into view through the entrance hole, smiling sheepishly. "Hey, honey."
Her shoulders slumped. "Blu," she breathed.
Blu squeezed himself through the entrance, sour-faced. "Sorry I took so long, I was digging through the cupboards and—"
Jewel silenced him with a kiss on the cheek. She hovered her beak over his ear. "Doesn't matter," she whispered, "You're here now, and that's the only thing I care about."
"Aww," Blu crooned. He nuzzled the curve of his beak against hers. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting."
She blinked slowly. "I know."
"Thing is…" He lifted up his foot clenched in a fist, holding a white mass bulging between his toes. "I wanted to get something for you."
She raised an eyebrow, examining the mystery-housing foot. "For me?"
Blu uncurled his toes, exposing a squashed foam-like blob atop the palm of his foot. As it lay, it swole into an irregular cylinder. "Linda packed me some marshmallows back from Minnesota, so…" He moved it closer. "I figured I'd get one for you."
"Uh-huh..." She grabbed the cylinder out of his foot with her own. "So…" She inspected it all around. "What do I do with it?"
"Oh." Blu glanced to the side. "You eat it. It's, uh… A snack — I guess you could call it."
"Eat it," Jewel said, eyeing up the 'snack'. "Okay…"
She sank the tip of her beak into the sugary sponge and ripped off a piece without much effort.
She closed her eyes, letting the foamy glob dissolve on her tongue. The taste reminded her less of a fruit and more of a sweetened rock that'd been somehow made into a springy pulp, but for all she cared, it could as well have been a rock, so long as it came from his caring heart, she would savor it like anything.
"Mmh…" Jewel opened her eyes halfway, already looking at him. She waved her tone, "So soft and sweet." She made eye contact for long enough to make him blush.
"Yeah, there's some, uh… Minnesotan cuisine for you! Though you could probably find them around here, too."
"Really?" she said, chewing. "I've never had anything like this before."
"I meant, like, in a store."
Jewel looked down at the cylinder missing a sizable chunk before biting off another one. Her beak full, she asked, "So what's this thing called again? Marsh…?"
"Marshmallow."
"Right."
Careful not to drop the sweet, she lowered herself on one foot and lay down on her back.
She splayed out a wing flat at her side and crooked a toe of her free foot at him. "Come on, my marshmallow; I won't cuddle myself here."
Blu laughed a little. He walked over to her wing waiting to serve as his cushion and rolled back onto its plush surface. Like a Venus flytrap, Jewel snapped her wing over him and pressed him to her side.
He let out a slow breath, staring up. "Wow."
Something about the way he'd said it made her snort. She rolled her head toward him. "What?"
"Nothing," he replied. He locked his eyes to hers. "I'm great."
"Yeah?" Jewel reached over and grabbed one of his wings before placing it on her chest. She rested her head on his neck, letting her eyelids slide shut. "I'm great-er."
She only had time to sigh.
Blu gave her a tender kiss where the top of her beak connected to her head. "I love you," his whisper poured into her ear.
Jewel squeaked into his fluff. She tightened her hold around him as if electricity coursed through her body. His words echoed in her mind for a good ten seconds.
She had nobody. Ever since The Fire, she had nobody. Nobody to laugh with, nobody to cry with, nobody to love. Not for one second had she imagined it would've changed, that such a pure, loving soul like him even existed. Yet it'd been him who had crossed paths with her, him who had saved her from her demise, him who had married her.
She was set to spend the rest of her life with him, and it still hadn't registered, not weeks later. There wouldn't come a day where she wouldn't question reality.
Her ear pressed to his neck, she listened to his breathing — each respiration a note of a lullaby. Reveling in his warmth, she relaxed every muscle in her body, producing a fading hum.
"Jewel?"
She made a groggy sound, as if he had woken her up from the deepest of sleeps.
"I've been thinking… Would you like to go on a honeymoon?"
"Honeymoon?" she mumbled. "Is that another Minnesotan delicacy?"
They chuckled — him a little more.
"No, no… It's its own thing. It's like… A holiday that newly-wed human couples go on. I thought… Maybe… We could give it a try?"
"Huh…" She paused. "Where?"
"Well… I haven't thought about that — just the idea. Maybe there's somewhere you'd like to go?"
"Hmm…" She brushed her beak up and down his feathery coat. "I'm already living the dream right here by your side."
"Are you? Ah…" A single puff of laughter burst out of him, giving a distinct smile to his voice. "That's… Nice." He moved his head closer. "But imagine being by my side… Somewhere else!"
"Maybe," she replied, a smile in her own voice.
Blu set his head over hers. "Well, it's something to think about," he said in a particularly goodnighty tone — one that fades as it's spoken.
Jewel purred back a goodnight. She began adjusting herself against her personal pillow, looking for that spot she had the bliss of discovering one day.
There it was.
Breathing out, she focused on the silence, waiting for the darkness to transition into dreamland.
A minute passed, no sleep. Another, nothing.
Her eyelids put up no resistance as she opened them. Something was off.
Jewel stared upward, not looking away for a second, as if her line of sight was a pillar supporting the ceiling from collapsing.
Kaieteur Falls.
Long ago, well before The Fire, she'd asked Mom about the waterfalls the tribe's patrol birds had washed off their mud camouflage in. Little had she known Mom would've taken her across the Amazon rainforest to nowhere else but Kaieteur Falls — not just a waterfall, but a full-on vertical river.
Jewel smiled. Still upholding the ceiling, she reached her foot to her face and shoved the final piece of the cylinder into her beak.
"Kaieteur Falls," she said, unintelligibly — her beak was stuffed.
Blu shifted a bit. "Huh? Sorry, what was that?"
Jewel swallowed. "Kaieteur Falls," she repeated, clearly, dreamily, ignoring her prior mumbling.
She lifted her wing off of his and extended it upward. "A waterfall so big you can't see it all at once." She moved her wing around as if drawing him a picture on the ceiling. "Set in the middle of the jungle. No humans, no city smells, no nothing — just you and me." She set her wing down, her imaginary artwork complete. "It's perfect."
Wing-by-wing, the pair of Spix's Macaws were soaring over what looked like a world of cotton, for the cloudscape below them — wrinkled with puffy hills and valleys — reached as far as the eye could see, never revealing what lay below. From the horizon up, the sky faded from light blue to deep azure, ending at the zenith with the blinding white of the sun.
Weeks, it had been — at least so felt to Blu. How could he have known she would've wished to fly by their own wings across the continent?! There'd been no convincing her to take an airplane, and no settling for the numerous waterfalls they'd encountered on the way; she wanted Kaieteur Falls. At least he'd managed to scribble up a note for Linda about their departure.
Yet however long they've been flying for, he couldn't be happier. For her, at least. She had sparks in her eyes every time she talked about the place, her determination had never dwindled, even days into their trip. Strangely, she'd never told him why Kaieteur Falls, of all places.
Jewel gasped quietly, looking down at a point in the clouds.
Blu looked over. "What is it?"
Her gaze remained locked in place. She hushed her voice, "Listen."
Blu strained his ears, looking where she was.
Very quiet, very distant swishing emanated from beneath the cotton layer, like of seaside, but originating from a point.
"We're here," Jewel whispered. She turned to him, a wide grin stretching across her face. "We're here!"
Before he could impulsively ask where — even though she had hammered it into his head more than he could count — she swerved toward him and reached her wing over his back, pulling him into a side hug. She sent them into a dive.
"Whoa!" Blu tightened his wing around her, holding her by his side in an identical fashion.
"We're heeere!" she cheered as they, flying as one, sunk into the haze.
Shooting out of the clouds, an ocean of tropical canopies faded into his view, and in its midst, pouring over a horseshoe-shaped cliffrange, the answer to his unasked question.
Kaieteur Falls.
Fueled by a river slithering from the greenery, the flowing avalanche that made trees look like broccoli plunged for hundreds of meters out of a sudden drop in elevation, its width half its height. Thick mist shrouded the lowermost part of the waterfall, obscuring the point where it fed into the outpouring.
He'd thought he had the image of the waterfall etched into his mind — so many times she'd described it to him — yet it looked nothing like he'd pictured it.
Pulling them out of the dive and into a glide, Jewel exhaled, forcefully, as if the sight itself squeezed the air out of her. "We made it."
She closed her eyes. Like a magnet to metal, her cheek gravitated to his. "We made it."
The moment she touched him, he snapped out of a vacant stare aimed at the waterfall. He un-dropped his beak, only now realizing it had been.
He would've looked at her if she hadn't forced his eye shut by pushing up on his cheek. He closed his other eye, smiling as she brushed against him.
They glided in silence, deaf to the world beyond their own for a few seconds.
Blu squinted an eye open. The waterfall had gotten a bit closer, though remained a fair distance away. "So… Do you know a good vantage point?"
"Oh, I know a great one." She pulled away from his cheek and looked at him sideways. "Behind it!"
She'd mentioned a secret spot, but behind it?!
Blu wanted to protest, but right then she threw her body weight down, putting them into another dive.
"Wait!" Blu started flapping his free wing, counteracting her movement.
Jewel grunted, failing to maintain her direction against his interference. "Blu! What are you—"
"It's dangerous!"
The turbulence generated by their opposing forces nearly had them spinning out of control.
They stopped struggling the same instant, restoring their glide. They stared at each other, beaks gaping, not uttering a word.
"I-I'm sorry, I…" he trailed off.
Jewel turned away like he was too bright to look at. "It's on me," she whispered, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have…" She finished with a sigh — a huff, even.
His gut stirred.
"Blu…" She met his eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Jewel… It's okay! You just got carried away — it happens."
Jewel threw her gaze into the horizon, making a sound he could connect to neither acknowledgement nor denial.
It stirred more.
"Every time I close my eyes," she started, "I see the day when we kissed under the flower arch — and I wish to for the rest of my life." She sucked in a breath, holding it a moment. "That day, I swore you my trust, and you swore me yours." She looked at him. "And I know you meant it."
He stared at her, his beak ever so slightly ajar.
"I understand you're worried, Blu. But if you do as I do, we'll make it behind there — I know we will."
Blu remained silent, blinking.
"Please," she said. "Do this for me."
He turned to the waterfall. He watched it flow in the distance, slowly approaching them.
"Okay," he whispered. He shifted his gaze to Jewel, nodding with smooth, minute oscillations of his head. "Okay."
Her eyelids fell shut. "Thank you."
The stir disappeared.
Jewel faced forward and opened her eyes. Blu aligned his line of sight parallel to hers.
"You ready?"
He nodded, firmer. "I'm ready."
Jewel tilted her wing. Blu copied her motion, sending them into a stable descent toward the side of the waterfall.
The swishing transitioned into deep rumbling the closer the water got. His heart pounded in his chest, chills ran up and down his body — yet his wing didn't waver.
Arriving above the vapor cloud, Blu looked up at the thunderous cascade. Way up. It stretched upward like a liquid skyscraper. Were it any wider, it would've swallowed them both.
Jewel leaned to the side and committed to a turn. Blu did the same, directing them toward the gap between the rock face and the water. Flying into the undercut space behind the waterfall, a tingle crawled across his skin as the shadow of the overhang engulfed their united form.
"There it is!" Jewel exclaimed.
Slightly above their level, a pocket of space was carved in the wall of the undercutting, resembling a large tree hollow with a wide entrance and a rugged rim. Unlike any tree hollow, the pocket had a half-circular platform jutting out of the bottom edge — a stone balcony.
She wound up her wing for a beat. He brought his own down right when she did hers. Flapping in perfect harmony, they climbed through the air toward the platform, reaching their feet for its edge.
They landed. Not a second after, Jewel pulled him into a hug — using both wings this time. "I knew you could do it!"
His breaths didn't calm down one bit. Heartbeat raced in his ear, his gaze cast into space.
He'd done it.
Blu laughed. A wave of relief coursed down his body, taking his strength with it. He closed his eyes — or rather, they closed themselves. Good thing she was holding him upright.
Right as he was about to reciprocate the hug, Jewel gasped.
Peeking through his eyelids, he found her gazing open-beaked toward the waterfall — its backside. "Look!" She took a wing off his side and pointed at it.
He followed her wing.
Thank God she was holding him upright. The water cascaded mere meters before him, filling every inch of his view with sheer flowing whiteness. His head spun, his stomach churned. He looked away, else he would've added to the waterfall.
He stabilized his gaze on Jewel, his vision still flowing. He found her grinning at the water with her eyes half-closed, the once-pointing wing now on her chest. "It's just how I remember it."
That smile. What would he have done to immortalize that smile. To take a picture with his eyes and frame it to admire forever. Every second of flight had been worth it just for that smile, even if it was to last but a moment.
Jewel closed her eyes and leaned into the hug once more. "Thank you for taking me here, Blu."
His heart melted like butter. She was so happy — because of him. Looking at her for a moment, he started to reach his wings around her.
Jewel gasped. Again.
"No…" She stared sideways — the other side, away from the waterfall. She let go of him and walked in the direction she was looking, leaving his wings grasping for nothing.
She made it to the entrance of the 'hollow' in the rock face. Inside, a very shallow, crater-like basin filled with water took up the entire floor of the space.
"It's still here!" she exclaimed, overlooking the pool of crystal-clear water.
Blu snorted, retracting his wings. It was her moment.
Jewel leaned over the water, looking down on its surface. She remained in position for a long time, staring at her reflection.
Watching her, Blu noticed something. Something peculiar. Something he couldn't believe. He tilted his head to the side, getting a better view of her profile, making sure of it.
It couldn't be, yet it was.
The smile was gone — replaced with an unacceptable, neutral expression.
He wasn't having it.
Blu crouched down, eyes narrow. As he snuck on, he kept the tips of his toes curled up, preventing his talons from contacting the ground.
He made his way over beside her in a manner that would've made a cat jealous. He crossed his eyes and flopped his tongue out the side of his beak before leaning over the water, putting his reflection next to hers on the water's surface.
Jewel puffed and recoiled back, seemingly in disgust. She laughed between her words, "What are you doing?"
Blu faced her, then uncrossed his eyes. "Cheering you up," he mumbled — he didn't bother to reel back his tongue.
"Oookay, whatever you just said."
The smile was back. Success.
Jewel looked back down. "Anyway, I hope that face didn't taint my water."
She bowed down and scooped water into her lower beak like into a bucket. She lifted her head up and tilted it back, letting the water flow down her throat. "Ahh… Nope, still the freshest water I've ever had."
Jewel made eye contact and nodded at the pool. "Try it," she encouraged.
Blu submerged the tip of his beak in the pool. He jerked away as its contents stung him in the tongue. "Oof! It's cold!"
"Cold?"
The way she'd said it — she was about to do something. Something he wouldn't like.
Turning to her, a wave of freezing water greeted him instead. "Jewel!" he shrieked as it came over him, failing to shield himself in time.
"There. Now you'll get used to it."
Blu shivered, goosebumps all over him. "A-A-Ah! You…!"
He looked at the water as if trying to boil it with willpower alone. He turned to her, wearing the same expression.
He turned back to the water.
Then back to her.
She looked at him sideways. "Don't you—"
Blu swiped at the surface of the pool.
Jewel covered her face with her wing as water splashed over her.
Doused, she moved her wing down, slowly, exposing a pair of slit eyes laser-focused on him.
Blu lay splayed out on his back in the middle of the pool, half-submerged, staring up with a gaping beak. No more would he challenge her to a water fight.
With a grunt, he got up on his feet. He shook himself off. Twice.
"Phew."
Not even remotely dry — but at least dripping wet no longer — Blu looked out of the pocket toward the edge of the platform.
Jewel, with her back to him, stood on the background of pure cascading water, her wings outstretched to the sides. Were the waterfall a giant radiator, he'd reason she was drying off; he had gone down kicking.
The water sloshed beneath his feet as he made his way over. At least it didn't feel that cold anymore. Out of the pool, the sloshing turned to tapping as his talons contacted the dry rock.
Jewel folded her wings on her back. She turned her head just enough to reveal an eye and a smirk. "How was the bath?"
"Uhh…" He joined her at the edge. "Involuntary."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? I saw that splash as a very conscious effort."
"Hey, you splashed first!"
"Yeah, and you second. And then I third, and forth, and fifth…"
They broke out into giggles.
He should've seen that coming.
Calming down, she looked into his eyes, and he did into hers — but she did more, somehow.
She lay her gaze on just one of his eyes — or directly past it, as if he'd become transparent and she noticed something of interest behind him.
She turned her head sideways, her gaze still locked on him, and started inspecting whatever she had been even closer.
"Your eyes are really reflective," she commented.
Blu chuckled. "Are you… Checking yourself out in them?"
"Mhm. Now stay still, please."
Blu kept as still as possible, blinking no more. Though keeping a straight face was another story.
Jewel grimaced a bit, looking into her personal mirror. "They're all messed up."
There was only one thing surely messed up — her crest feathers. They glistened with moisture, glued together and devoid of springiness — his doing.
She looked at him — not through him, at last — before offering the back of her head. "Would you…?"
Blu lit up, his statue-acting over. "Of course!"
Jewel faced the waterfall, granting him a proper maintenance angle over her crest.
Now a living comb, Blu fastened his beak around one of the many silk-like strips protruding out the back of her head and pulled on each with a great sense of delicacy, returning them to their proper, unmatted grace.
When he was just about done, she sighed — the bad kind of sigh.
"What's wrong?" Blu asked, beakful of fuzz.
Jewel looked at him for a moment, but only a moment. "Mom and I played around in that pool, too," she murmured, slowly. "She took me here, you know. Back then."
Blu's heart skipped. He drew his head away from her crest. She had rarely mentioned her mother to him, or even her past, at that. Not once had she mentioned her during their travels.
Jewel appeared hypnotized by the flow. "In my tribe, it was said these waters grant good luck to whoever reaches them. It was tradition to take the leader's offspring here as a trial of perseverance — the flight took many days."
Blu didn't know whether to look at her or with her.
"I was very young when my turn came around, younger than usual for this trial — it was my Mom's call, and she who guided me here."
Blu chose to look at her.
"In this exact spot, she told me to close my eyes and reach out my wings, feel the power of nature before me, connect to it. I did, I let myself focus, I could hear the water's sound grow faint, feel my weight diminish, see patterns forming under my eyelids. And then… Then she splashed me with the water from the pool." Jewel chuckled. "Oh, how I shrieked…"
"Hah, that's…" Blu looked to the side briefly. "Funny, actually."
Jewel lay her gaze on him for just long enough for it to not be considered a glance. Her eyes had a glimmer to them.
"Oh, Blu…" she sighed toward the waterfall, pronouncing his name slowly, like she was savoring it as it left her beak. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I woke up to see your face the day after you saved my life. For a second, I thought…" Near unnoticeably, she shook her head. "I was crazy. That I dreamt everything that happened. That you were just… A figment of my imagination."
Her face tensed up. She turned to him, exposing a tear running down her cheek. The look on her face almost brought him to his knees.
"But you're real," she said, her voice frail, quivering.
Jewel jumped to tighten her wings around him, hanging her head over his shoulder. "You're real!"
Blu kept staring where she had just stood; his gaze hadn't followed her as she lunged at him. Silent, he reached to envelop her.
Jewel forced out a shivering breath the moment his wings rested her back. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the side of her face to his neck. "You're my everything."
Her body jerked as she made an unusual sound, one muffled by his coat. A sob. Multiple ones.
Blu redirected his gaze at her. Her weeps did something to him — he couldn't bear them.
He moved his beak as close as he could get to her ear. "I love you."
Jewel whimpered once. Her embrace relaxed, as if his words had drained all of her energy. Leaning on him, she slid down to his chest, hanging onto his nape, leaving her weight left for him to uphold.
Jewel looked up at him from his chest.
That look.
He knew that look.
She moved her wings behind his head and pulled herself up, pressing her beak to his so hard it was a miracle the tendons in her wings didn't rip apart.
Blu closed his eyes.
He was her everything. He — Tyler Blu Gunderson — was her everything. How could it be? How had a nerdy city bird like him become her everything?
Rio. The day he'd traveled to Rio, the day he'd met her, it happened — a spark that'd set his heart afire. In a single day, the one spent with her, he'd lived more than he had his entire life. And when fate had sent her falling to her doom, his flightless self had jumped after, choosing to spend his last moments with her over the rest of his life without. She was his everything.
As if reading each other's minds, they pulled away from the kiss at the same time.
Jewel tilted her head down and made contact with the top of her beak against the tip of his.
Blu cracked his eyes open, moisture clouded his vision some. He watched her breathe with her eyes closed, calm — as though asleep.
"Let's go home."
In an instant, his eyes went from squinted to wide open. "What?! But you wanted—"
"I know," she said. "I know." She drew in a gust of air. "Let's go home."