Blu was thoroughly bored. He'd been on the road for ages and nothing had happened. He was sitting in the driver's seat staring at two squashed bugs on the window, trying to unfocus his eyes to make them merge.
Then from the corner of his eye he saw a flash of colour, an oncoming car.
As both vehicles swerved, Blu looked out the window and time dilated when he caught the eye of Jewel. He stared at her as the van sluggishly moved through the slo-mo reality, his face not fast enough to show the shock it wanted to.
The recognition in their eyes was immediate, the widening of the pupil, the slight double take, it was a single moment frozen in time.
And then it passed.
"It's Blu/Jewel!" both birds immediately yelled.
Blu jumped onto the open window and leapt out, flying after the van.
The driver of the van looked into the wing mirror and saw the car that just passed him careen off of the road and out into the grasslands.
"The hell." he said to himself
He then stuck his head out the window and looked back to see a second blue spix macaw flying after the car.
Jewel tried to frantically to break free of the man's grip but being a small bird with one wing makes that battle a bit one sided
"Gimme my gun ," said the driver, "with both of these birds we'd be twice as rich!"
The guy in the back of the car handed the driver a single barreled shotgun from the back of the car.
A few hundred metres ahead there was a sharp turn in the road as the path traced the edge of a small lake. The driver brought the truck round this corner and then slammed on the brakes, dropping everything to load the gun with a birdshot round.
He fumbled a cartridge out of his coat pocket and shakily slammed it into the side of the gun, loading the weapon. The car skidded to a halt, acrid tire fumes filling the air and the driver lined up his shot
Jewel watched in a state of pure helplessness as the man pulled the trigger.
A loud clap. A burst of blue feathers in the air. A falling form, a light splash as it landed in the pond.
"NO!" her voice breaking from force and emotion.
She bit down hard on the hand that held her.
!CRUNCH!
The man instinctively let go and Jewel leapt out of his palm and out the window.