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The graveyard is silent - eerily so. The half-dead, dark grass crunches underneath his feet as Parrot fidgets nervously. The wind whispers through the gray trees, rattling the skeletal leaves. The sky is a sheet of dull gray, promising rain. It shouldn’t be possible for a place to be so oppressive, so humid, and still so cold. Parrot shivers, tucking his colorful wings closer to himself. They feel out of place in this graveyard - a splotch of color where all life has been sucked out. He feels like just being here is making him bleed out his soul, his color, his lifeblood. The sooner we get out of here, the better. Rows upon rows of blank slates of stone stretch until the horizon - an ocean of the dead. He shivers again. Who knows how many skeletons lie beneath the ripples of dead grass?
“Parrot?” Wemmbu taps him on the shoulder, jolting him. ( “Are we, like, gonna go, bro? Or what?”
“O-oh, yeah,” Parrot says, realizing his legs have rooted themselves in the ground. He rubs a little life into them - not very effective, since his hands might as well be icicles - and continues onwards. “Dude, don’t do that again.”
“Do what?” Wemmbu’s eyes are darting around nervously. He’s unnerved, too. Somehow, it makes Parrot feel better. Selfish, as usual.
“You know,” Parrot sighs. It makes him feel a little bit better, arguing with someone, if just to fend away the tendrils of fog clutching at him. “You know what you did.”
“No, I don’t, bro! What did I do?”
“Just don’t jumpscare me like that again,” Parrot says.
“What?”
They lapse into uneasy silence. Parrot leads the way, listening to their two pairs of footsteps. Anything but the graves.
“Where is this smuggler, anyways?” Wemmbu whines. Parrot blinks - he’s been listening to footsteps and the wind for so long he’s forgotten that Wemmbu was even there. His voice is too loud, a blaring siren screaming I’m here! Come and get me! in the midst of this dozing graveyard. He’s a bit grateful for an excuse to keep talking. (Selfish again, they’re probably not alone here and he’s going to get them captured.)
“Dude, no wonder you got caught by the LAW,” Parrot mutters. “Could you be a little quieter?” He likes Wemmbu’s loudness anyways.
“Stop changing the topic,” Wemmbu continues, a little quieter. “Where is this smuggler?”
“Uh… I don’t know. They’re in this graveyard, and it can’t be that big.”
“Sure,” Wemmbu says.
“Speaking of which, aren’t you part of the reason this graveyard even exists?” Parrot snipes back, half-joking. He doesn’t want to let the conversation die.
“Uh, yeah, but what was I supposed to do?” Wemmbu retorts, immediately on the defensive. “Lie down and die?”
“Bro, I was joking,” Parrot says.
“Damn,” Wemmbu says sarcastically. “I didn’t know ParrotX2 could be a joker.”
“Oh my gosh,” Parrot says, exasperated.
“Yo, do you see someone ahead?”
“Wait - what?” Parrot squints. “Oh.” There is a dark figure, in the fog. He swallows, trying to hide his fear. Nonetheless, his wings curl up behind him. It’s unreasonable and illogical and childish that he’s afraid of a graveyard, of all things, but it’s true.
He walks forwards.
“So - so you’re the smuggler?” he asks, looking at the player. They turn around, surprised. They examine the two hybrids, then nod excitedly, their dark green cap bobbing up and down. They plant down a sign on the path, wiggling it so that it stands upright.
Yes, follow me, they write in smudged pencil on the oak wood. Their baggy green uniform shifts in the wet air
“So - so you’re the smuggler.” They nod again, seemingly annoyed. Follow me, they underline. “Wait.” Their diamond boots come to a halt. There’s something wrong about this smuggler. They move too confidently, too quickly. Smugglers are hunted; they should move like prey. His boots are too shiny, too new - there’s not a single scratch or scuff on it. It could be nothing, Parrot thinks. But why would a smuggler not wear armor? It makes no sense.
“Who’s - who’s the guy by Kings’ River?” Parrot asks. Wemmbu fidgets impatiently behind him. “Dude, can we get on with it?” he asks bluntly. We, like, have to go to the Northern Council and all tha-”
“Shush,” Parrot hisses annoyedly at him. Wemmbu snaps his mouth shut, although he can feel the dragon hybrid’s angry glare boring into his back. The quiet closes in all too quickly when there’s no speech, though - just the scratch of a pencil on wood.
Why does it matter? Paprika writes in impatient, sloppy print.
“Why does it matter, bro - why does it-?” Parrot asks, surprised. “Of course it matters-”
Let’s just go.
“No - no, bro,” Parrot says, eyes widening. His wings raise slightly in alarm as he backs away. A golden apple materializes in his hand as he gulps the glinting fruit down in seconds. “I’m - I’m not going.”
“Yo - Parrot, what?” Wemmbu asks from behind him. “Shouldn’t we-”
“Wemmbu, just-” be quiet, is what he’s about to say, but he’s distracted.
The smuggler - but it wasn’t a smuggler from the beginning - flashes something in their hand - a rail - and places it down with a thump on the packed dirt road.
“-just run!” he shrieks, changing the course of his sentence.
There’s the hiss of TNT beneath his feet (he walks up the spiral staircase, not looking at his friend’s face) and his legs start to run just as the ground trembles (he sees free daylight) and (an explosion rips through the air) he’s thrown onto his back by the explosion and (his ears are full of ringing) and everything goes black and (his communicator pings.)
Wifies was blown up by ParrotX2
Wifies left the game
ParrotX2 was blown up by paprika002
ParrotX2 left the game
paprika002 was blown up by paprika002
paprika002 left the game
ParrotX2 usually listens to his hunches, but sometimes not even that is enough.