Chapter 7- Milo, Aurora and Sirius arrive in Rio

And so

While Ahsoka and Joanna arrived at Tulio's Aviary first, the three blue macaws, Aurora the Spix macaw, Sirius the glaucous macaw and Milo the Lear's macaw arrived in Rio with their owners Brandon and Audrey and accompanying ornithologists Francisco and Alejandra after a long flight from their respective locations of London, the UK and Sydney, Australia. It had in fact taken Milo, Audrey and Alejandra longer than Brandon's group to arrive in Rio due to Australia being much further away from Rio than the UK. Then as soon as the two groups met at the airport, they continued their journey together to Tulio's Aviary where Tulio's team was waiting. Audrey and Brandon were pleased to finally meet each other face to face at last as were Sirius, Aurora and Milo. The two groups had spent much of their friendship years speaking to each other via laptop transmissions and so were already friends. Now that they were together, they can finally talk to each other in person.

Brandon, Audrey and company travelled via jeep along the main road by Copacabana Beach where a multitude of tourists either relaxed or played to their left. To their right was the main city of Rio and like most cities was flooded with hustle and bustle. In the seat section of the jeep sat Audrey, Brandon, Francisco (who was driving) and Alejandra. The former two were spreading sunscreen onto their skins and Audrey had a handheld fan blowing air into her face.

"It s-s-sure is toasty here," said the Australian-born, her accent different from Brandon's British, "We s-s-s-sometimes get hot summers in Aust-st-stralia especially in the northern parts."

"W-w-we sometimes had hot summers in the UK as well," said Brandon as he smothered sunscreen onto his face.

"It does get very hot here indeed," said Francisco in the driver's seat, "We're right near the equator so we pretty much experience no change in the seasonal day and night lengths people in the more northern and southern latitudes like you two do."

"Instead we tend to have wet and dry seasons," added Alejandra. Audrey then gazed at Copacabana Beach to the group's left.

"Once M-M-Milo and Br-Br-Brandon's two macaws have s-s-s-settled with their mates, I would like to visit that b-b-b-beach," said she.

"Only after we get your macaws to Tulio's Aviary, Audrey," said Francisco.

"You will need to take minimum amount of valuables if you're planning on visiting Copacabana as well," added Alejandra, "Theft is quite common among the tourists there."

"Yes, especially the sly pickpockets who would just reach a hand into your unoccupied bag to take your purse and wallet," said Francisco. Audrey gazed at the two ornithologists and immediately put the idea of visiting Copacabana Beach out of the question. Then Brandon moved on to another subject.

"This city is known for its colourful Carnival shows and parades, isn't it?" he said.

"Indeed it is," said Francisco, "In fact, Tulio and Linda have actually been in it to pursue some smugglers and rescue Blu and Jewel."

"Have they?" asked Brandon.

"More on that later," said Alejandra, "Let's just focus on getting your macaws to Tulio's Aviary first."

Audrey and Brandon exchanged looks and spoke no more to resume their attention on the journey.

In the cargo trailer, Sirius, Aurora and Milo talked from their cages. The former two were kept in a cage separate from Milo and like their owners, the three had accents tinting their speech with Aurora and Sirius' being laced with the British accent and Milo's, Australian.

"I'm sure you look familiar somehow, Milo," said Aurora, her head poking through the bars, "Is it just me or is that familiarity genuine?"

"I don't remember much about you to be honest, Aurora," said Milo equally confused, "Neither of Sirius much."

Sirius then gazed up into the Rio sky, the tall buildings and a few colourful birds flying into the azure blue canvas of the sky above.

"To be honest with you, this place does seem eerily familiar," the glaucous macaw said. Aurora and Milo looked up and took in the Rio cityscape including the Christ the Redeemer statue.

"And I'm sure the familiarity of that statue of Jesus, the Saviour of mankind from their sins must be real as well," said she, "Just looking at it seems to bring back a brief flashback of me perched on a high branch looking down at the cityscape of Rio..."

"They're probably just memories of dreams, Aurora," said Sirius, "I have sometimes been dreaming about Rio at night as well."

Aurora just shrugged while Milo just said nothing in the other cage. Then the sounds of singing and rapping reached the three's ears, alerting them. The Spix, glaucous and Lear's macaw looked up and to their surprise, they saw two small birds singing and dancing on top of their cages, singing in a language neither Milo, Aurora and Sirius spoke though Sirius was able to understand a few of the words but the two birds were singing in the tongue native to Brazil, Brazilian Portuguese. One of them was a plump songbird with a deep red head with a crest, a pale coloured beak, brown eyes, and a chubby body with grey and white feathers. The wings and feet were a darker grey and the wings looked disproportionally smaller than the rest of the body to the macaws' surprise. Yet somehow, the bird was able to fly. This bird was a male red-crested cardinal and he was dancing atop Milo's cage. The other small bird, a canary and also a male, was slimmer, had yellow, brown and orange feathers, yellowish beak and pinkish feet and wore a green and blue bottle cap atop his head like a hat and he was dancing on the roof of Aurora and Sirius' cage. He, too, had brown eyes and spoke Brazilian Portuguese. Then he gazed at the three macaws and spoke to the cardinal in Portuguese, seemingly asking him a question. The three macaws exchanged confused looks.

"Do any of you two understand what they are saying?" asked Aurora.

"I think they are wondering who we are?" asked Sirius. He then began to try and communicate with the cardinal and the canary by speaking what Portuguese he knew and asking them if they speak English... not very well and utterly broken and shaky. Throughout his time with Brandon in the UK, Sirius had been studying foreign languages and Portuguese and Spanish had been two of his favourites so he knew more words from these languages than he did the others he studied but he could only form a few Portuguese sentences as he was doing here. Then the canary and the cardinal changed their language and spoke English as requested by Sirius' rather clumsy Portuguese attempts.

"Of course we can speak English," said the cardinal in a rapper-type voice, "Portuguese ain't th' only language we speak, ya know."

"You talk Portuguese pretty good, if a bit messy," said the canary, complimenting Sirius' ability to speak a little of the language.

"I cannot really speak it very well, to be honest," said Sirius a little sheepishly. Milo and Aurora cracked small smiles of amusement but then the cardinal began to examine the three macaws closely, especially Aurora and Sirius.

"Hey, Nico, check dis out," he said, "'Specially the gal macaw here."

The canary then examined Aurora closely and flinched with surprise.

"Wow, 'As Jewel takin' a likin' t' cages, Pedro?" he asked, "I thought she HATED cages."

"Um, I'm not Jewel, you two," Aurora replied, "My name is Aurora and this is Sirius, a glaucous macaw and that's Milo in the other cage. He's a Lear's macaw."

The canary and the cardinal named Nico and Pedro respectively, exchanged agape looks and gazed back at the three macaws.

"Is dis true?" asked the former.

"I-I-I thought Blu, Jewel, Carla, Bia and Tiago are the last Spix macaws alive," said the latter.

"Oh, not anymore," said Sirius, "There are two other Spix macaws discovered, a brother and a sister."

Nico and Pedro's eyes and beaks widened all the more in disbelief.

"It's true," said Aurora. Then Nico gazed at Sirius and commented on his species.

"An' you said you were a glaucous macaw?" asked the canary.

"Indeed I am," said Sirius, "Why the reaction?"

"The glaucous macaw is s'pposed to be extinct," said Pedro, "Jus' like th' Amazon flyin' fox. We met this flyin' fox named Ahsoka once before and we had been surprised."

"And I'm not the only glaucous macaw either," added Sirius, "Another glaucous macaw, a female, has been discovered and I am on my way to meet her."

"Alongside me for the female Lear's macaw and Aurora there, the male of the brother and sister duo Spix macaws," added Milo. Smiles formed on Nico and Pedro's beaks when they heard this.

"Oh, you're gonna meet a gu-u-u-url, eh, you two?" asked the latter.

"An' this Spix lady's on th' way to meet a handsome guy, eh?" asked the former.

"Yes," said Aurora slowly. Then Nico and Pedro perched near her.

"Well, dat sounds great, you three," said the cardinal, "Do ya mind if we give ya some courtship advice?"

"Courtship advice?" asked Sirius.

"Yes, courtship advice," said Nico. He and Pedro then flitted to the space between the two cages. "First thing ya gotta know 'bout Brazilian ladies, glaucous and Lear's boys, is that they respond to confidence," said Nico to Sirius and Milo.

"An' you, Spix lady," said Pedro to Aurora, "Brazilian guys are th' ones tha' make th' first move. I gave that advice t' pretty bat Ahsoka in th' event tha' she meets a handsome guy someday some time ago."

The three macaws just gazed back at the duo.

"Okay," Aurora replied slowly. Then Sirius stepped in.

"Look, you two, we appreciate your advice and dating but can we handle this ourselves?" said the glaucous macaw, "It's our date and we would like to face it in our own way."

Aurora and Milo nodded in agreement. At first Nico and Pedro were a little disappointed and decided to take the macaws' request.

"Okay, suit yaselves," said Nico and with that, he darted off.

"But remember dis hint, guys make th' first move and gals respond t' their confidence," said Pedro as he followed his canary friend. Milo, Sirius and Aurora gazed on as the pair disappeared into the azure sky.

"They sure are a funky duo, aren't they?" said the former.

"Yeah, let's resume our focus on our upcoming dates," said Sirius and with that, the trio turned and looked forward as Francisco continued to drive the jeep on.