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“Listen,” Wifies said as Parrot turned to climb the hill. He looked back at his friend, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t want to listen. Parrot didn’t know why Wifies was so against going to the Farland City. He had thought they were friends. On all their previous adventures, Wifies had always supported Parrot’s ideas, however stupid they turned out to be. And when they got into a close scrape, well, he was always there to help, with the cleverness for which Parrot admired him.
What had changed?
“I know I can’t stop you,” Wifies continued, stepping a couple feet forward through the shallow grass. “But I’m asking you to, for once… be a little selfish. Be a little sensible.”
Something about these words scared Parrot. They were so blatantly, obviously wrong. This was so different from the Wifies that he knew. So different from the Wifies who had accompanied him for the scavenger hunt, back in the beginning. When had he changed? How was he such an entirely different person?
Parrot inhaled deeply and paused to articulate his words.
“I can’t lie…” he started, pulling out his spyglass and looking through it at Wifies’ face, which he had once known so well. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but…”
He took a shuddering breath, and looked down at the spyglass in his hands. Am I really going to do this? Parrot asked himself. …do I even trust him anymore? He traced the shapes of the intricate carvings embedded in the dark wood of his most beloved possession. After each adventure, he had added a design, something to hold the memories beyond his own mind. He turned it over in his feathered hands, remembering the meaning of each of the little pictures. There was the end city that he had tried so hard to protect. Zam’s chunkban prisons that he organized the perfect escape team for. From all the way at the beginning, even before Wifies joined, there was the five Wonders that had been inevitably destroyed.
Parrot realized that there was one thing in common with all of these, with everything that had ever been built on this server.
Each and every one had been destroyed.
Some for noble cause, some by heartless villains seeking only chaos. But still, it was as though the Void herself hungered for the destruction of her own world.
This is why I have to go to the Farlands City. A rush of emotion flowed through Parrot. I have to go, to stop this cycle. To save everything anyone ever loved from annihilation. If I have to go without Wifies, so be it.
“I…” Parrot hesitated for a second. “I hope I’ll see you at the Farlands.” He gently tossed his spyglass on to the soft grass at his feet. It started to roll down the gentle slope of the hill, but Parrot turned away before he saw where it went.
With that, Parrot scaled the hill and continued towards the direction the compass had pointed before Wifies burned it. He didn’t look back once. He would only move forward, toward his ultimate goal of peace. Towards Luigi’s goal.
If he was going to get his spyglass back, well, that was up to Wifies now. Parrot had trusted his friend to keep it safe before, hopefully he still could. Hopefully he could trust that, one day, Wifies would find him and return it safely.
Parrot hoped that day would be soon, but he feared otherwise.
As all these thoughts were tumbling through his head, he kept walking. One step at a time. Each was a lonely step now, his friends all gone. His feet were starting to hurt again, swollen in his tight shoes, so he took them off. The soft grass was soothing.
If he didn’t have a mission, if he wasn’t in a hurry, he would have stopped to climb a tree and sing. So many melodies he heard from the birds perched within the grove of cherry trees. His feathers itched to join them amongst the branches.
But he couldn’t afford to stop. So he continued on in the same fashion, through different forests and biomes.
As the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, Parrot felt a gentle vibration from the comm in his pocket. It must have been a message from Wifies, but he resolved to not look at it, navigating through the underbrush of a forest instead. But then his comm buzzed again, twice.
Parrot finally decided that he would at least see what his friend had to say.
[I’m sorry I shouldn’t have raised my voice]
[you’re right im not being fair]
Parrot’s allay hovered over his shoulder, curiously inspecting the comm with its gentle glowing eyes.
[just try and see from my perspective]
[I can come with you but I can’t sit aside while you end yourself over nothing]
There was a pause, and Parrot assumed that was all Wifies was going to send. But as he went to tuck the comm back into his coat pocket, it buzzed one final time.
[im sorry]
Parrot stared at the screen, trying to formulate an answer. His fingers were poised above the little keyboard, but nothing he thought of sounded right.
[please respond parrot im sorry]
No. He wouldn't respond. Wifies knew what he had to do if he wanted to earn back his trust. And so Parrot put his comm back in his pocket, and told his tired feet to keep walking. Tears began to well in the corners of his eyes.
He’d never really fought with Wifies before. Sure, they had their moments of small conflict, but nothing remotely like this. Parrot didn’t know what to do.
All he wanted was his friend back.
The real one, the Wifies that was patient and kind and smart and…and all the things that Parrot loved him for.
He stumbled to the ground, curling into a ball. The tears flowed freely from his eyes. He couldn’t take it anymore. He just wanted to be happy, for everyone to be happy.
Parrot wished he could do what Wifies wanted.
The two of them could run away, to someplace millions of blocks out, where no one could ever find them. He could write songs and fly freely without fear of getting shot. His friend would probably make a berry farm that he would tend to when he wasn’t writing and planning puzzles.
But that was a world without Dean. A world where the mafia still thrived. A world that, eventually, would end up completely destroyed by the wars that constantly plagued every light of peace.
And that was why he must go on. To be that light of peace that Luigi had been before he was killed. To show the people of this Unstable Universe that there is an option besides destruction.
And so Parrot climbed back to his feet and continued on. Each step closer to peace.