Linda and Tulio's flight touched down in Oklahoma
"Ok," Linda said looking at her phone, " Blu's last sighting is just a few miles from here."
"There should be a rental car for us just outside the airport," Tulio said, pulling his bag out of the overhead locker.
The two of them got out of the airport and collected their rental car . Then they drove off, heading straight for the place Blu was last seen. Linda pulled up the picture again; it was a blurry traffic camera photo of the macaw driving a car.
After a bit of driving they arrived at the scene. And then turned to face north
"You sure this is the right place," Tulio asked.
"Yep," Linda replied, holding up the picture and lining it up with the building in front of her, "this is it, now we just go north."
Jewel's stomach grumbled.
"Ugh, why is there no food here!" she groaned,
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Blu said wading about in the water, "now all I have to do is hope that a fully grown fish above the legal size limit swims into the 2 inch deep shallows so I can catch it. Or I find a smaller one that's an invasive fish like the Snakehead which is apparently nice in a taco, or deep fried."
"Stop talking about food," luiz complained ,"it's making me hungry."
Blu looked at Jewel who made the, "you should probably stop before we get eaten by a bulldog" hand wave so he waded back to shore foodless and wet.
Blu sat down next to Jewel by the campfire that he had once again set up. Jewel seemed to have warmed up to the fire (no pun intended) and was actually pretty good at keeping it going considering they only had grass and petrol.
As the group all relaxed and tended to the fire, a low rumbling sound began to roll towards them.
"A car!" Blu yelled, jumping to his feet ," maybe it's Linda."
"Blu, we've had loads of cars come this way," Jewel pointed out, "I don't think your Linda's going to find us."
"It's still worth checking," blu replied, running off into the tall grass.
Linda looked diligently out of the windows of the van, sitting in the back so she could see out of both sides. Blue plastic bags kept catching her attention and making her jump but aside from that there was no indication that her bird was anywhere near here. For the past few hours her faith had been slowly drained.
She had no clue if she was on the right road, she had no clue if blu was following roads, she had no clue if maybe she'd missed him already or if he was even alive.
She looked out of the right window, scanning the area as she had been doing for the past few hours when something caught her eye. A flash of blue.
When she looked closer she dismissed it as it wasn't bird shaped but after her brain caught up with her eyes she immediately yelled "Tulio! Break!"
Tulio slammed on the break and the car quickly ground to a halt. Lynda plastered her face against the window, staring in horror at the blue feather floating on the water. The two leapt out of the car and ran towards the lake. As they were running another spark of blue caught Tulio's attention. And then another and another and as he looked around more he noticed loads of blue feathers dotted around the area.
He picked one up and sucked on it, definitely Blue macaw feather.
"What happened here?" he wondered fearfully
Linda gazed mournfully at the lake, watching the feather float around in the water. as she was looking out , she heard a skwark from behind her. She wheeled around and gasped in delight when she saw Blu, skwarking up at her happily.
"Blu!" She yelled, picking up her bird, "thank goodness you're safe."
"And look!" Tulio said excitedly ,"we found Jewel! And some dog"
Linda turned and looked to see Jewel and Luiz walking out of the brush as well
"See jewel!" Blu yelled down at her ,"she did find me."
"All right all right," Jewel replied, rolling her eyes playfully ,"you win, now I just hope one of your humans has food."
Linda looked Blu up and down and immediately noticed the gaping hole in his wing
"What happened to your wing?" Linda asked, "Tulio, com look at blu's wing."
"Oh, don't worry about it," Blu dismissed, "it'll grow back... I think."
Tulio glanced back at blu's wing ,"looks fine, the feathers should regrow."
"Yes! I'm smart," Blu celebrated to himself, fist pumping (or wing pumping i guess)
Tuilo looked at Jewel's wing and how it had fared over the last few days. The splint jewel had loosened to the point of uselessness after being dunked in the water but tulio was more focused on who the hell splinted the wing because the vet clearly stated that they had done nothing of the sort. The wing looked pretty good, still broken but seemingly well aligned and it had sustained no further damage.
"Ok then, let's go home," Tulio said, turning to walk back to the car, "I'm just going to patch up Jewel's wing first."
"Is it seriously that easy!" Jewel shouted in indignation.