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Parrot is no stranger to running. Actually, he’s something of an expert on it.
It had been a joke for a while. People–mostly Wemmbu–would laugh about the fact that he always seemed to get away, no matter how impossible it seemed. He could be backed into a corner or surrounded by enemies, but he always had a final trick up his sleeve. He was slippery like that. Months of outmaneuvering Zam, then Clownpierce, then the Mafia in a seemingly never-ending cycle of fight-flight-disappear had made him very, very good at running.
Which is currently something to be grateful for, because Parrot is once again running for his life.
Lungs heaving, legs burning, heart pounding. The usual.
As he sprints through the forest, trees and pink petals streak past him while he does his best to weave through the trees. Cherry groves never were his favorite–he’s always been partial to warmer, more humid climates–but at least they’re easy to run through. There are no shrubs to push through or invisible snowbanks that could swallow a person whole. Unfortunately, that also means it’s very hard to lose someone who’s actively chasing you.
He kicks up cherry blossoms behind him with every step, and he’s sure the effect would be very pretty if he weren’t currently being pursued by people who want him dead. Ah, well. No time to dwell on it now. He needs to come up with something, and fast.
The whole mission was supposed to be simple. Here’s a stash, X marks the spot, in-and-out. Easy. But of course, because nothing on Unstable could ever be straightforward and the universe hates Parrot specifically, something had to go wrong. Bandits had beaten them to the stash by who knows how long, and kindly waited until all the puzzles and traps guarding it had been solved or disabled to make their appearance. Before Parrot or Theo could so much as look at the treasure they’d done all the work in finding, they were surrounded.
One mission, Parrot thinks wistfully as he takes inventory, still racing through the trees. I just want one mission where everything goes according to plan and nothing catastrophically wrong happens.
He has plenty of tools and food, but in terms of escape gear, he’s down to three ender pearls. That’s it.
“Any ideas, dude?” calls Theo’s voice from somewhere behind him. Theo’s faster, but he’s currently balancing escaping with blowing up well-placed TNT carts near any bandits that get too close.
“Give me a second!”
Carting is Parrot’s least favorite PvP style, he’s decided. It’s complicated and risky, and no matter how good Theo is at it, he can’t stifle the brief spike of panic that courses through him every time an explosion goes off a little too close to his friend’s feet. There’s also the smell of gunpowder, which clings to absolutely everything. Parrot can’t stand it, and he already knows that the first thing he’s doing when they get back to the potion shop is making Theo take a shower.
That’s not important right now. Right now, he needs to focus on getting them out of this alive.
Okay, three pearls and Theo. He’s worked with less.
Up ahead of them is a small mountain. Not too tall, with the cherry trees continuing up the side and on top of it. An idea hits him.
“Okay, okay, how many carts do you have?” he shouts.
“Uh, like eight left, why?”
“You see that mountain?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I need you to fly ahead and place a bunch of carts in one spot, then get to the top and get ready to shoot.”
“Oh yeah, I see what you’re thinking!” The wild excitement in Theo’s voice is as concerning as it is encouraging. A stray arrow zips past them. “Will you be okay without me?”
“I’m fine, bro, just go!” Parrot urges, still not risking a look behind him.
“Alright X2, be safe.”
Parrot’s blood goes cold, and he stumbles.
Just as quickly, he forces himself to recover and keep moving. He absolutely cannot afford to think about that right now. Surely other people have called him that, right? Maybe Derap, or Ken, or…someone, even if he can’t think of specifics right now. It’s just…the whole phrase is eerily similar.
He loses a mere second of momentum, but it’s enough for the bandits behind him to push closer. Dangerously closer. The gap between him and a half-dozen or so bloodthirsty raiders is much too close for comfort.
Theo is already far ahead, his wings carrying him faster and higher than his legs could. Unlike his best friend, Parrot doesn’t have functioning wings, and he needs to save his few remaining pearls if they’re going to pull this off. Which means he needs to come up with some other way to speed up.
…Or a way to slow his pursuers down.
Flint and steel is in his hand in an instant. Parrot immediately begins setting it off as he runs, not daring to take the time to turn around and do it properly. Blindly, he flicks sparks into the grass and petals beneath him and prays that it catches.
Based on the shouting that starts a few seconds later, it does.
Parrot risks a glance behind him and sees several patches of flames in his wake. The bandits are having to maneuver around them, which is costing them time and giving him a few precious seconds to pull ahead.
This is good. Maybe they actually can salvage this whole scuffed mission after all.
He’s at the base of the hill now. As he starts climbing, running up the sloped parts and pushing himself up ledges where he has to, he scans the face of the hill for any sign of Theo. For any flash of bright yellow, any familiar shouting…
There! Parrot spots him waving at him from a shallow but flat ridge about two-thirds of the way up.
“Over here!” Theo shouts.
“Okay, okay, got it!” Parrot replies. “Get out of there!”
Theo obeys, pushing off and flying to the very top. Parrot picks up his pace now, useless wings fluttering behind him in a futile attempt to make himself go faster. Muscle memory or whatever, he hardly registers he’s doing it and tries not to think about it once he does.
As a general rule, Parrot’s wings are something he tries not to think about too often. It had taken him a few months to adjust to not being able to use them, and since then he’s decided that what can’t be changed is best left completely out of mind. His wings and the circumstances surrounding their clipping are an ugly open wound, and the more he picks at it the worse it will become.
Secretly, however, he doesn’t think he’ll ever fully adjust to his loss of flight.
With another conscious effort to shift his line of thinking, Parrot finally pulls himself into the flat section Theo was in just moments ago. Sure enough, a concerningly precarious pile of TNT carts waits only a few meters away from him. Perfect.
Risking one final glance behind him, Parrot finds that they’re a fairly decent ways behind him, but still clambering up the hill. The fire strategy must have worked better than he’d anticipated.
He slips an ender pearl into his palm and waits. Nervously, he runs it between his fingers, feeling the cool, smooth surface roll back and forth. Wait for it…wait for it…just a few more seconds…
Just as his pursuers crest the edge of the alcove, Parrot throws the pearl up with all his might.
“Theo, now!”
He appears at Theo’s side just in time to see him loose a flaming arrow. It’s perfectly aimed and perfectly timed. Of course it is, this is Theo. There’s a heart-stopping moment as it soars through the air, an explosion of rock and blossom and fire, and suddenly the pings of a half-dozen death messages on Parrot’s communicator.
Theo whoops triumphantly and lowers his bow. The pair peers over the ledge, and sure enough, their plan worked. Where there was previously a ledge and a group of violent bandits, there is now nothing but a crater in the side of the hill.
“Holy shit,” Theo laughs, as Parrot breathes out a sigh of relief. “Good plan, dude! I can’t believe they fell for it.”
Parrot finds himself grinning, despite feeling like he could collapse a little. Wow, he had been running for a while, hadn’t he? His lungs burn and his legs are kind of shaking, but that’s alright. They’re almost done here. All that’s left is to load all the loot onto Sky, and then they’re home free.
They’re still relishing in their hard-won victory when he notices the smoke.
Rising up through the pink blossoms at the base of the hill, gray and ugly and looking completely out of place in the tranquil forest. Parrot stands there, dumbfounded for just a moment before he realizes, Oh. The fires.
It seems the fires he started to slow their attackers down have spread, caught on to petals and wood alike. They aren’t in danger, but he can’t help but feel a little bad. The forest was so pretty, and now it’s burning because he got distracted and had to correct with desperation and carelessness.
Something is already itching at the back of Parrot’s mind when the smell hits him.
It’s the smell of vanilla from the blossoms coupled with the rising smoke. The smell of burning cherry wood and lingering gunpowder in the air.
Flint and steel in his hands and fire raging in front of him, a pink cherry house lit ablaze in a fit of grief and rage. Gunpowder in the air and the smell of burning sakuras mixed with smoke, so so so much smoke that Parrot can’t breathe, can’t breathe through the smoke and stench and the gaping emptiness in his chest and it hurts, hurts his eyes and his lungs and his heart and those stupid fucking blossoms are burning in front of him and he did this it was him it’s all his fault–
Parrot is throwing up before he even realizes what’s happening. He’s stumbled away, collapsed and vomited onto the grass before he’s even registered the bile rising in his throat. No, wait, he’s still vomiting, he thinks. He can’t really tell. Everything is blurry and he feels his nails digging into grass and dirt beneath him.
He forces himself to focus on that. Soft blades of grass, the give of earth beneath his hands. He clings to it in a desperate attempt to stay grounded, stay here in this forest instead of slipping back into his head.
The vomiting has stopped, at least. Now it’s just dry heaving. Slowly, his vision comes back into focus, and he blinks away the remaining fuzziness to see–
“–rot? Parrot!”
Theo is already beside him, glasses pushed up so Parrot can see his eyes. Parrot can’t tell how long he’s been there because he can’t tell how long he’s been doubled over, clutching at the grass, but he’s there when he comes back to himself. He blinks again as his eyes meet his friend’s, and he finds the anxiety evident on his face.
Parrot breaks.
With a sob, he all but launches himself at Theo, who grabs him reflexively and pulls him close. Wings wrap around him protectively, and it’s within that safe embrace of familiar arms and yellow feathers that Parrot truly begins to cry.
He hasn’t let himself cry in a while, at least not like this. Every once in a while it will sneak up behind him and slip grief through his ribs like a knife, and he’ll let out a few small, silent tears before pulling himself back together. This isn’t that. This is audible, hiccupping sobs and tears streaming freely down his face. Theo doesn’t say anything, just holds Parrot close and lets him thoroughly ruin the shoulder of his jacket.
Theo knows what happened, or at least the general shape of events. Parrot had told him what he needed to know at the start of their friendship, and had fully intended for that to be the end of the discussion. They don’t talk about any of it. It’s a general rule. Not the Director, not Parrot’s clipped wings, not the purple headband he keeps wrapped around his left wrist. All of it is absolutely, unequivocally off-limits.
And it works for them. They both have their own pasts, and there was no point in digging up old skeletons or picking at half-healed scars. Or at least it did work, until Parrot broke down at the smell of burning sakuras.
Once Parrot has run out of tears and his shuddering gasps for breath have finally quieted, he pulls back. He avoids looking at Theo directly and instead keeps his eyes firmly trained on the ground beside him. He can’t handle that right now. A small scattering of petals stares back, taunting him.
Wordlessly, Theo offers him a flask. He rinses his mouth out before drinking. He hadn’t even realized how thirsty he’d gotten, and he gulps it down greedily. Running for your life and then sobbing your eyes out will do that to a person.
When he finally forces himself to speak, his voice is hoarse despite the water.
“He built a house out of cherry wood, back in Paragon.” He laughs drily, with no humor behind it. “You know, it wasn’t even in a real cherry grove. He had all the trees planted there. I could barely stand to look at it most of the time.”
His throat is getting tight again, and if he doesn’t spit it out now he’ll never say it. Normally that would be fine, but Theo is clearly so worried right now. Parrot figures he owes him an explanation, at least of this.
“I burned it. After he died, I went back and I burned that house to the ground. Set the whole grove on fire, actually.”
He’s still avoiding Theo’s gaze, but he can feel him looking at him. After a moment, Theo lets out a quiet, “Oh, Parrot…” and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
It stuns him for a moment. He makes an “oof” sound as he’s pulled in, and then he sits there like a moron for a moment before wrapping his arms around his friend and returning it.
“Did you know they’re a symbol of friendship?” He’s not certain why he says it, but it has something to do with the sakuras that still have the audacity to drift down peacefully around them. “Friendship, Theo, and I–”
Theo’s grip tightens around him. “Parrot, stop,” he pleads. “Bro, just…just stop.”
Parrot can’t have this. Every friendship he’s ever had has ended in violence and heartbreak. They’ve ended with someone else suffering because of Parrot, and him being left to live with the weight of having ruined another life. Theo–faithful, dutiful Theo–deserves so much better.
There are petals in his hair. They’re floating down and around, surrounding them, and they’re all Parrot can see. Blossoming, falling, eventually rotting on the ground. Ephemeral, like falling snow. Beautiful and impermanent, like a best friend.
That’s the moment it hits him. A phrase he’s heard before, but hasn’t thought about in a long time. The other idea sakuras are known for. It hits him like a punch to the gut, and Parrot can’t tell if he wants to laugh hysterically or start crying again.
Mono no aware.
Accept the impermanence, appreciate it even as it fills him with a bone-deep sadness. Empathy towards the fleeting.
But…that’s not what the sakuras are, is it? They’re associated with the whole idea, sure, but they add their own aspect to it as well.
Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like the petals are mocking him anymore. They’ve settled in his hair, on his shoulders, on the ground around them, reminding him to hold on to this knowledge. Whispering past his ears on the breeze, urging him to get up, keep going.
Parrot isn’t sure how long they stayed like that. He doesn’t remember getting up, doesn’t remember the walk back, and doesn’t remember Theo loading all the treasure onto Sky. It’s only when Theo approaches him again that he snaps back to awareness.
“Hey, are you ready to go?” Theo asks. There’s a forced casualness to his voice.
Parrot takes a second to get his bearings. He’s sitting down, leaning against a tree back where they were when they got jumped. Sky hovers several meters away, waiting and ready to go. He nods in response and stands, but then he pauses, and scoops down to grab a fallen twig with several blossoms still clinging to it.
He clings to the blossoms as Theo gracefully flies up to Sky’s back, then reaches down to help Parrot (much less gracefully) clamber up himself. Before he knows it they’re already high above the trees, pushing through the clouds and away from the cherry forest.
The silence isn’t comfortable. Theo doesn’t seem to know what to say, and Parrot has spent the last god-knows-how-long searching for words that evaded him.
Finally, after what feels like hours, Parrot says, “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘mono no aware?’”
Theo shoots him a confused look. “Um, no? Should I have?”
“No, it’s just…I’ve been thinking about it, is all.” Parrot sighs. “It means ‘the pathos of things.’ Like, being aware and appreciative of impermanence. It’s…another thing the sakuras are associated with. Because they’re so fleeting, you know?”
As if a switch had been flipped, all the worry from earlier is back. “Parrot, you have to stop beating yourself up over this, it’s not–” Theo starts.
“No, no, that’s not where I’m going with this, I promise,” Parrot assures him. This is going the wrong way. “When you look at the blossoms you appreciate their beauty and you feel sad about how fleeting they are. It’s like, beauty in transience, you know?”
“This is still sounding really sad.”
Parrot laughs. “I mean, it is. That’s kind of the whole thing. But my point is, the sakuras also represent renewal and new beginnings. They always come back.” He looks at the tiny branch between his fingers, then holds it out to Theo. “What I’m trying to say is, thank you for the new beginning.”
After a brief moment where Theo just stares at him, he takes it. “You’re so corny, dude,” he says, turning away, but his voice wavers and Parrot swears he sees him quickly swipe a hand beneath his sunglasses.
Parrot grins. There’s still an ache deep in his chest, and he’s starting to suspect that it will never go away. Not entirely. Like clipped feathers, his grief will likely never heal quite right. But it will get better, and just like with his wings, he will adapt to it and learn to live around the loss.
He’ll be okay. He has Theo, a tiny potion shop, and a new beginning. He lets himself fall back until he’s lying down, stretching his wings out and feeling the gentle wind between his feathers as they soar back to Capital City.
And with Sky below him and the sky surrounding him, Parrot can fly again.