7
Jewel sighed as she watched Blu quickly retreat back into their nest, entirely avoiding her and effectively ending their conversation.
"Is the truth not good enough?", Blu's voice said in her mind.
She paused, trying to connect the dots. "He's mentioned that before... the thought of him not being good enough for me. But if that's what's bothering him, he would bring that up... he would talk to me about it. Instead, he's just being distant, and avoiding conversations...
"I didn't do anything to him, did I?", Jewel asked herself, remembering what Mimi had said to her before they left for Rio.
"Oh, darling... you can't blame yourself. Or him, for that matter. If he's reluctant to tell you how he's feeling, he's afraid of something."
She then thought about the conversation her and Rafael had the prior day.
"Well, what do you think he's most afraid of?"
"I think he's afraid of not being good enough. Not being good enough for me, or for the kids..."
Just as she was about to dismiss the rest of the conversation, she remembered an important part of it.
"...Maybe he's afraid that I'll get tired of hearing that... and that if he keeps bringing it up, it'll come true."
"If you ask me, that makes his mind his greatest fear."
Jewel continued to think to herself, before she decided to drop the subject. "Speaking of Rafael… I should probably tell him and the others about Bahia, to see if they're still interested. Get the kids something to eat too.", she said quietly as she went over to the sleeping Blu. She silently giggled to herself at his sleeping form as she raised a wing to gently stroke his head feathers, letting out a deep breath as she finished. She stared at Blu for a few more seconds, before she turned around and quietly walked out of the room and flew off, looking for breakfast for the family.
Meanwhile, Blu sat perched on the psychiatrist's couch, a tingling sensation in his head feathers, which he paid no attention to. Next to him sat a notepad, and on his other side sat a bunch of crumpled, ripped papers in the forms of balls, stacked neatly nearby in the form of a pyramid. Blu had begun writing on another paper, before he grumbled with annoyance and tore the paper off, crumbling it up, and putting it on the top where two other paper balls stood, actively completing the three dimensional pyramid.
"Damn!", he said angrily. "Why does this have to be so hard? I don't know what to tell Jewel!"
Before he could continue talking to himself, he heard a noise from the void that resided outside the room.
"Please don't be Yin, please don't be Yin…", he whispered as he stared at the hole.
"Why not?", the voice in the hole responded, as Yin walked into the room. "Don't you want to talk to me?"
Blu rolled his eyes. "No, not particularly.", he said as Yin began to walk over to the tower of papers and purposely grabbed one of the paper balls from the bottom of the pyramid, which caused the other paper balls to tumble down and roll away.
This made Blu even more annoyed. "Seriously?"
"Relax, we're not playing Jenga. Besides, I would've just lost the game if I did that."
"Yeah, but you just made a mess when you didn't need to."
"Me? I didn't make the mess, they're your paper balls that you stacked."
Blu shot him a look. "Oh, so we're playing the blame game, huh? Okay, I can play that."
"No, we're not playing any sort of game.", Yin responded as he unfolded the balled-up paper that was in his talon and began to read it. After a few seconds, Yin tossed the paper and looked at Blu, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Planning on opening up to Jewel, are we?"
"Don't say we. I'm me, and you're-"
"You can be so stubborn, you know that? No matter what I tell you, you just don't listen!"
"Actually," Blu said, hopping off the couch, his talons swiftly landing below him as he walked up to Yin. "I have been listening to you. Listening to you berate me, insult me, make me feel worse about myself, I've done everything you've told me to and you still-"
"No, you clearly haven't!", Yin interjected, raising his voice. "You. Clearly. Haven't. I can tell, because you're going to tell Jewel! I've told you, over and over, that it's not a good idea to do that!"
Blu shook his head. "It is a good idea! She's clearly trying to help, and at this point, you are becoming too much of a problem to deal with by myself, both literally and figuratively!"
"And you'd rather have Jewel deal with it, right?", Yin asked, his demeanor becoming more aggressive.
"No, I-"
"You said you didn't want to worry Jewel and the kids, right?"
"Yeah?"
"So, tell me... what part about telling Jewel about me won't make her worry, huh? Or how about her realizing you're not good enough for her?"
"That's not going to happen, alright? You're lying, you're messing with me to prevent me from trying to talk to her, and now I see it clearly.", Blu said, ignoring Yin's questions. "I've been listening to you this entire time, and that was my greatest mistake."
"You haven't been listening. I know that because you're still alive."
"I-"
"You know your family is better off without you.", Yin said, cutting Blu off. "You know everybody else would be too."
"...That's not true."
"It is, and you know it. You see it everyday, the happiness on their beaks when they're not there with you, and the shame you bring them when you are with them... when everybody else laughs at you, or looks at you funny because you're a weird, bumbling moron who has no idea what he's doing, they're ashamed to have someone like you even associated with them."
Blu gulped, trying to hide the fact that he was becoming nervous of Yin's statements. "Well... well, when I wake up, you're going to see that you're wrong. You're lying, and you're wrong."
"When you wake up, yes! Because who knows when that'll be, considering you sleep until the afternoon... It's weird, really. Somehow, you do something that no other macaw does, and yet, it's your most normal quality, you freak."
"I'm not a-"
"Actually, thinking about it now, anything you do is weird. You're just... weird. No wonder you'll never be like others! You already listed most of them earlier, but I'll pick the most well-known one… being raised by a human. That's really weird for a spix macaw, no?"
"It's not weird! Plenty of different kinds of birds can be kept as pets."
"And are any of them spix macaws?"
"No, but..."
"That's one thing that creates a burden for your family and the tribe. Remember? You've basically heard it from Eduardo directly."
-One month ago-
Blu woke up in his nest, inside the hollow that his family now called their home, which resided in the Spix tribe, hidden deep within the Amazon. Unlike his family, Blu still called Rio his home, but was becoming content with living there.
He looked around him, not hearing any noise from his hollow, as all he could hear was the sounds of birds singing and dancing throughout the forest. He slowly got up and walked to the entrance of the hollow, where he perched on the ledge, slightly moving his head and talons to the song he was hearing. It wasn't a song Blu had heard before, but he didn't particularly mind it.
"Maybe I should join them.", Blu thought happily to himself. Just as he slowly began to spread his wings, he second guessed himself, as he stared at the vibrant colors and different shades of blue flying around. The smile on his beak faded, as he slowly stopped moving along.
He pictured himself flying and joining the song, before the music suddenly stopped, with all the birds awkwardly staring at him.
Blu laughed nervously. "Heh, just, um... just trying to..." He stopped as all the birds began to murmur in little groups and fly away, leaving Blu standing there awkwardly.
He shook his head, the false memory disappearing in his mind. "Maybe another time. I could use some breakfast, though.", he thought, as he raised his wings once again, and flew off, making sure he didn't get in the way of the singing birds.
After a minute, Blu spotted a passion fruit tree. Before he could swoop down, he was interrupted by someone calling his name.
"Blu? Blu!"
He turned around and saw Eduardo and Roberto perched on a branch nearby, and Blu assumed they had been talking about tribal matters, as he flew down to the duo.
"Hello, sir.", Blu smiled. "Hi, Roberto."
"Hey, Blu!" Roberto chirped. "How are you?"
Before Blu could respond, Eduardo interrupted. "If you don't mind, Blu, I was hoping to talk to you, in private."
"Oh, of course!" he smiled nervously.
Eduardo turned to Roberto and smiled. "You are dismissed."
Roberto just nodded as he turned and flew away, leaving the two alone.
"Um... did I do anything wrong, sir?"
"No, but I wanted this to be private as it might be a... somewhat personal conversation."
Blu was perplexed, wondering what Eduardo was about to say. "Personal, how, sir?"
"Look," Eduardo began. "I understand you have a very close relationship with your... human companion. However... I would appreciate it if you kept her and the other humans distant. I don't want any of them in my tribe."
Blu was taken aback. "Uh..."
"I know I had dropped my stance on humans, but the more I've thought about it, I've realized I still don't trust them being so close to my tribe."
"Why?", Blu asked in his mind. "No, don't do that... you're beginning to grow on him. Just go with it."
"Oh, I see. I understand, sir. I'll make sure they respect your boundaries.", he smiled, awkwardly hiding his discomfort.
"Good.", Eduardo nodded. "Now, I'm obviously not saying you and Jewel and the kids can't visit them. I'm not sure why you chose to live with humans over your own kind growing up..."
Blu dropped his fake smile, offended by Eduardo's remark. "Woah, I didn't choose to-"
Eduardo paid no attention. "But, that's none of my business. Besides, it taught you how to deal with them and their little gadgets and machines. If they were to ever go too far, you would know how to take care of a problem, if one should ever arise."
Blu just stared, becoming angry with the ignorance he was being hit with. "Well, yeah, but-"
"No more questions, please. I know you mean well, Blu, but you ask a lot of questions. One of the best qualities a bird can have is answering the questions others have, not asking them. Like I said, please make sure they stay separated."
"...Yeah. Don't worry about it."
Eduardo nodded. "You are dismissed."
As soon as Eduardo said that, Blu turned around and flew off to the passion fruit tree he had been eyeing before he was called over, his mood ruined by the interaction he just had. He landed on a branch on the tree, and plucked off a passionfruit with his talon.
Instead of eating it though, he just stared at the fruit in his talon, the once appetizing juicy and appealing purple color of it was now completely gone, the fruit now looking tasteless, bland.
He tossed the fruit, not caring about where it landed.
"I'm not hungry anymore."
"Now, do I need to remind you of your other qualities? And how they've managed to inconvenience everybody around you?"
Blu just stared angrily at his talons, not responding to Yin's taunting.
"No?"
"No, no. You don't."
"Alright then. So, why do you choose to have your family succumb to them? Why do you choose to ruin a perfect family, when you could very easily fix it by taking yourself out of the picture?"
Blu raised his head and looked at Yin, the two pairs of amber eyes matching each other with the same amount of hatred.
"I can hide that. I can't keep hiding you though. And that's why I'm going to tell Jewel."
Blu turned around and began picking up the papers, trying to reorganize them neatly into the once standing pyramid that stood on the fake, surreal cushion that sat on the couch. "Now, if you'll excuse me… I have a pyramid to build."
"Oh, you do?", Yin asked sarcastically, watching as Blu's talons placed the paper balls one-by-one in the shape of a triangle.
Blu didn't say anything as he began to stack the second floor of the pyramid, before he paused. "Let's see... the bottom row has... ten paper balls, so if I want it to look even, this floor should be..."
He paused and quickly counted the holes where the paper balls would stand. "There should be six on this floor, then three on the next, and then the one at the top." he said, as he turned back around and gathered more paper balls.
Yin was silent for the next few minutes or so, until Blu had nearly completed the pyramid, now on the fourth and final floor. Blu turned around, expecting to find the single remaining paper ball on the ground, but didn't find anything.
"That's weird... did I count wrong?", he asked, before turning back to the pyramid and gently counting each individual ball, before he stopped and exhaled deeply.
"You took that last ball off the bottom.", Blu said bluntly, knowing Yin was watching.
"Ding, ding, ding!", Yin said, as he grabbed the paper on the floor and crumbled it up back into a ball. "Here.", he said, extending his talon out, holding the ball in it. "Take it. Finish your pyramid."
Just as Blu walked over to Yin and raised his talon to take it, Yin pulled his talon back and threw the ball at the hole in the room, as the two watched the ball fly through it and disappear into the void.
Blu turned back to Yin, now angry again. "What the hell was that for?"
"Because, I need you to stop building your little pyramid and listen to me."
Blu didn't say anything as he turned back to the pyramid, before he realized the notepad still sat on the couch, looking completely untouched. Blu smirked as he grabbed the notepad and tore off a page, crumbling the paper into a small, clunky ball and gently placing it in the last spot, finishing the pyramid. "There we go. A nice, paper ball pyramid.", he said to himself.
"Remember what happened last time you told Jewel how you were feeling?", Yin asked.
Blu's smile and quick moment of triumph was cut short by the unexpected question.
"Uh... why does that matter?"
"Because, since you think that Jewel's going to accept you and how you're feeling, why don't we actually see what happened last time you tried to do that, hm?"
All of a sudden, Blu's vision began to flicker back to the Pit of Doom, while he was talking to Jewel. The vision went back and forth, like a switch being turned on and off. One moment he was staring at Yin, the next he was sadly staring at the stone ground below him, surrounded by a stadium made out of stone, moss, and wood. Despite the size of the stadium, Blu knew it was just him and a disapproving Jewel standing across from him.
Before Blu could view the memory any further, when he flickered back to reality, he quickly grabbed the notepad off the couch and swung it across Yin's beak, using it to stun Yin and make the flashback close in on itself. Yin stepped back, clearly fazed by the sudden strike.
"Yeah, y-yeah! Yeah, I bet that doesn't feel good, now does it?", Blu said, his breathing heavy as he tried to put on a tough act. "I'm not letting you mess with me anymore!"
He went quiet as Yin silently rubbed his beak with his wing, before lowering it and beginning to glare at Blu, which caught Blu off guard.
"Um... well? Don't you have anything to say?"
Yin just continued to glare at Blu, not moving anything in his body.
"Oh, wait, he's frozen.", Blu realized. "That must mean it's time to wake up!", he said as he turned around to the hole, expecting to see his eyesight and the roof of his hollow. Instead, he was greeted by the same pitch-black nothingness that he knew he couldn't walk through.
"Shouldn't this be ope-"
"You really shouldn't have done that."
Blu froze as he turned back around to look at Yin, still glaring at him, his amber irises feeling like poison.
"...Huh?"
Yin didn't say anything as he moved closer to Blu, and got so close to the point where their two beaks were only a foot away from each other.
"I've been going easy on you... but clearly, you're not grateful for it. I can see now that I have to raise the stakes to get through your stubborn head, you worthless, neurotic failure."
Blu flinched at Yin's sudden abrasive nature, beginning to stumble backwards. "Okay, um... I'm-"
"And you're going to regret making me do that, you idiot. I'm sick of you not listening to me. I will ruin you and your relationships. I will cause your greatest fear to come true."
He stopped talking for a few seconds.
"You will listen to me in the end. I'll make sure of it."
Blu didn't say anything as he felt Yin's wing shove him out of the way, and watched as he disappeared through the void, once again leaving Blu to himself. A few seconds later, the black hole suddenly turned into the ceiling of Blu's hollow. Normally, Blu would feel relieved seeing this, but he instead found himself nervous about Yin's threats as he walked through the portal.
After blinking once, he realized he was in reality and looked around him, before he put his head back down and stared at the top of the hollow, hearing his family somewhere nearby.
Instead of joining them, Blu sat there and began to zone out, focusing on nothing but what Yin had said.
"I will ruin you and your relationships.", he repeated to himself. "Isn't that what he's been trying to do already?"
"And if not… what's he gonna do next?"