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Finally, after what felt like months of desperately trying, Wifies is back. With some help, and some skill, and maybe even a bit of luck, Parrot managed to get him back from the chunk ban. Logically he knows it wasn’t that long with him being gone, but still, Parrot agonizes over the fact he’d let Wifies get banned in the first place. After all, he only joined because Parrot asked him to.
Agonizing aside, they’re finally done with the stupid riddles and parkour and prison breaking. Parrot takes a deep breath, reminding himself of this fact as he leans against the trapdoor railing blocking off the stairs to Wifies’ bedroom, refocusing on their conversation.
“So wait, explain it again?” He asks, scratching one nail against the hard keratin of his beak.
Wifies huffs, looking up from his lap where he had been tying flint onto arrow shafts, “Oh my g–are you serious. Were you not–okay no I’m not explaining that all over again bro.”
“What no,” Parrot crosses his arms, frowning, “C’mon, I’m paying attention I promise.”
“Nope!” The other man sighs dramatically, sounding in spirit as if a disappointed teacher wagging their finger had possessed him, “Shoulda’ been listening the first time, Parrot.”
Outside the window the sky is dark, the sun having set nearly half an hour ago, the stars visible and bright. The lantern over the bed casts the room in warm light, the fire twisting slightly behind the glass, matching the fireplace to Parrot’s side. It’s calm, a gentle wind brushing at the wooden sides of the house and the crops outside dancing under its play.
Parrot takes a deep breath and lets it out loudly, “Okay, whatever you say dude.”
He lets his gaze drift around the room, adjusting his wings against his back to attempt at resettling the feathers. He has on his elytra, meaning they’re at their full size, the wrist joint angled high and the coverts falling onto the other side of the wooden banister, stretching down into the space left by the stairs. There’s an insistent itch in a few spots, places where debris is still trapped after all the effort of the past several days, a few feathers dry and loose at the base. His thighs are a little bare on the sides, victims of his absent minded plucking over the past few days.
“Parrot?”
“Huh? Yeah, what’s up?”
“How big is your wingspan?”
Parrot snorts, “Dude I don’t know, why?”
He gets a shrug as an answer, “Just curious I guess. They’re way bigger when you have your elytra on.”
“Yeah, they always are.” He tilts to the side and pulls one wing over the banister to splay it in front of himself, the tip of the longest flight feathers nearly reaching the wooden planks around Wifies bed, he keeps it hovering so it doesn’t drag along the brown rug there.
Wifies shifts, moving his supplies aside in order to lean closer to the wing. He brings a hand up to rest on his chin in thought as he observes it academically. Parrot almost wants to pull it back, confused by the sudden interest, but he stays still. He went through all that trouble to get his friend back, is he really going to start doubting his intentions now?
“You some kind of zoologist or something now?” He jokes, trying to alleviate some of the unease he feels regardless of his determination to not pull away.
Wiffies shakes his head with a small huff, “No, just never seen feathers this big, they’re like the size of my forearm, it's kinda crazy.”
“I mean, I guess.”
He takes the chance to consider his wings again, this time looking at them as if they aren’t attached to his own body. The feathers are in fact much larger than your average chicken or parrots, the colors an array of teal and blue, blending into green the closer to his shoulder. He’s got spots of orange and yellow around his face and fading out around his torso, but the wings themselves don’t have so much variety. The undersides are a selection of darker blues and overall the feathers are dull and scuffed. It’s been a while since he sat down to preen away the dust and dead weight.
Wifies seems to notice this as well, glancing back at him, “Dude when did you shower last?”
At that Parrot does tuck his wing back closer to himself with an offended huff, “Like, this morning dude! I don’t shower with an elytra on, are you crazy?”
The bed creaks as Wifies leans back, shaking his head. He takes a moment to consider something, eyebrows drawn together in the middle of his forehead.
“Wait okay,” he starts before humming, “So does that mean that when you don’t have your elytra on you can’t clean your wings? But what about the smaller ones?”
“I don’t freaking know how it works dude,” Parrot groans, rubbing at his face, “Does it matter?”
“No, no I’m curious now. You weren’t listening to me earlier so I think you kinda owe me some attention now, don’t you?”
Parrot glares at him, “I could just leave you know.”
“Yeah. You could.”
Silence. They stare at each other, neither backing down. Finally, Parrot crumbles, rolling his eyes and leaning off of the banister. He turns around and unequips his elytra, feeling as the feathers shorten and disappear like they usually do. It must look interesting because Wifies lets out a small hum, his fletching materials long forgotten as they fall to the floor when he moves closer. Again Parrot feels the distinct urge to pull away and tell Wifies to back off, but he wants to trust him. After all that hullabaloo with Spoke and the chunk bans he feels like it isn’t too much to ask for.
“So as you know they’re way smaller when my ely is off.” He shifts around the wings as he finds the balance again. He finds himself slipping into a scientific tone, as if explaining redstone, “That’s how they fit under a chestplate. When they’re this size I can’t use them to fly, duh, and I just rinse them in water. They’re perfectly clean, see?”
Wifies hums in assent, the perfect model of an attentive student.
“And then, when I do this,” he re-equips the elytra, “And they get big again, they’re like…replaced with the same state as they were before? I guess?”
He sighs, not sure how to explain something he doesn’t fully understand himself. He just knows how to manage the things, it’s not like he’s ever had to understand the science behind it when he’s lived with them his whole life. When they rematerialize or whatever, the tips brush against the ground and he pulls them up a little as he hears Wifies shift again behind him.
“So wait, why don’t you just clean them outside of the shower?”
Parrot turns around, shaking his wings a little to release some ansty energy, “I don’t know, it just like, takes a while. And I was busy with trying to get you and the others out for so long that it just really doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean ‘doesn’t matter?’” Wifies sounds almost offended, frowning intensely as he sits cross legged on the bed, “Isn’t it like, uncomfortable or something?”
“I mean, I guess? It’s like, fine, though. It’s whatever.”
“You being uncomfortable for no reason isn’t whatever, Parrot,” he insists, digging his heels into this stupid argument.
“Fine! I’ll preen them! Jesus Christ bro,” he relents with an annoyed flap of his wings.
Wifies nods, looking almost smug. After a second he seems to have an idea, leaning forward onto his hands, “Wait…can I help?”
“Dude…what.” Parrot can feel his entire body puff up in shock as he tries to, in any way, compute what Wifies just said. Straight to his face no less!
“C’mon dude, it’d go way faster if I helped!”
“You’d have no idea what to do,” Parrot retorts.
“I could figure it out.”
He feels conflicted despite his immediate and vehement head shake of no as an answer. Technically Wifies is right, it would go way faster if they both tackled one wing, or even if the other man did it himself with non-taloned hands and a better view point. Plus, it’s been so long since Parrot has had a teammate who would be willing, much less want, to help him preen and as a social species it’s been a little lonely to do all the wing care by himself. It’s usually a time for social engagement in his smaller, dumber, animal compatriots.
“Wait, it's not like–an incredibly personal thing right? Like I didn’t just suggest helping you bathe did I?” At least as he says this Wifies manages to look a little sheepish, hand balling up the blanket beneath him as he cringes.
Parrot closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and holding it before groaning, “No it’s not that, it’d be the same as me, like, offering to tie your shoe for you or something stupid but still…”
There’s another pause of silence as Wifies considers him and Parrot keeps debating with himself, a losing battle of trying to drag up reasons he’d actually be bothered by having Wifies help and coming up empty.
“It looks like you’re considering it,” Wifies points out, an undercurrent of self satisfaction in his voice that almost makes Parrot laugh out of the sheer absurdity of the situation.
“You know what Wifies,” he asks, opening his eyes again and focusing on Wifies’ own black ones, “Sure, fine, whatever. You can help me preen my freaking wings. I don't care. It seems like it’d make you happy so why not.”
One side of Wifies’ mouth lifts in as much of a grin as he usually gives, nodding, “See I knew you’d agree, it just makes sense.” He pauses, eyes widening a little as the fireplace cracks and pops to fill the silence, “So uh…how do we–how do I….”
Parrot snorts, laughing as Wifies grumbles at him to stop, “Dude I told you–”
“Yeah yeah whatever just–stop–just tell me what to do and I’ll be fine–”
“Okay, okay,” Parrot pulls himself together, still smiling as he thinks for a moment. Glancing around the room gives him very few spaces that would be optimal so he settles on the best one.
He gestures to the bed, “It’d be easiest with me facing the window, then you can sit behind me and I’ll stretch my wings out.”
Wifies agrees easily, slipping off the blankets and grabbing the dropped sticks and flint to store them in a chest or drawer or pot somewhere. Parrot takes the time while he’s tidying to sink onto the bed, tucking his scaled feet under himself and shifting around on his butt until his short tail feathers aren’t crushed under him. With his wings laying down beside him and brushing the ground he looks out the window, seeing the same dark sky full of stars. The horizon has a few mountains, and the silhouettes of some zombies are visible as they roam the untamed land mindlessly. Mobs don’t have to deal with chunk bans, or escape rooms, or pointless server drama, Parrot thinks. But, then again, mobs don’t have friends like Wifies either, and maybe that’s the trade off.
Lost in thought, it takes until the bed behind him dips under added weight for Parrot to notice Wifies is back. He shifts his focus, trying to see him in the reflection of the glass and getting a blurred figure that’s barely recognizable. He turns over his shoulder instead, nodding in greeting as he watches the other man clumsily shuffling forward until there's maybe a foot of space between them, where he stops and looks up at Parrot in question. Parrot flexes his tail as if trying to right himself in the air, satisfied when none of the feathers are crumpled by Wifies’ knees. He gives Wifies a thumbs up.
“Okay, hold still so I don’t whack you,” Parrot instructs before carefully lifting his wings up and pushing them back behind him, he can hear as Wifies makes a small sound of surprise when the wings end up stretching on either side of him. It takes a moment of fenangiling while Parrot turns and angles the wrist joints until the wings are largely parallel to the bed, weight resting against the pillows and blankets while still being spread enough to allow Wifies access to most of the feathers.
By the time he settles on a position that's convenient and more or less comfortable he glances back up at Wifies to give him the go ahead, except he pauses at his friend's expression. Wifies isn’t looking at him, not his face at least, instead he’s looking between the two wings straddling him, the longest coverts nearly overlapping behind him. His eyes are intense, dragging across the length of the wings as if seeing something interesting for the first time, as if the wings are anything more than just masses of muscle and tendon and feather. There’s a determined set to his face. It makes Parrot feel weird, wrong footed, so he clears his throat and looks back out the window.
“Uh usually,” he starts before swallowing to reset his voice, “Usually to just clean them you spray with water and let them dry, that takes care of the dust and dirt. When the feathers get old or damaged though, you go through and pick out the duds and open the pinfeathers. Those are new feathers that have a sheath around them,” he explains.
Wifies makes a sound of understanding, “Those are made of keratin right? Like finger nails and hair?”
“Uhhh,” Parrot blinks, “I don’t know? Why do you know that?”
“I like trivia,” Wifies shrugs, the motion exaggerated enough to be visible in the reflection of the glass in front of Parrot.
“Okay bro,” He shakes his head in bemusement, unease settling a little at the familiar conversation structure.
“So what do I need to do?”
Parrot hums in thought, “Well, you just go through the feathers and look for any debris like rocks that might be stuck under the feathers. If a feather is angled weird or doesn't seem like it's connected to the skin you can gently pull on it and see if it comes out. That’s it really.”
There’s a change in the mattress as Wifies adjusts himself, seemingly leaning in as his arms are visible in the reflection lifting off his lap. Parrot can feel the warmth of his bare hands and his shoulders stiffen in a moment of doubt.
“Look, uh, final warning. It’s gonna take a long time, I mean it,” He pipes up, feeling as the air stills behind him, “So you can call it quits when you get bored and I’ll do the rest back at my place, yeah?”
“Parrot, I don’t mind–”
“Like it usually takes me an hour just to do one wing myself–”
“Parrot!” Wifies cuts him off, his voice still that same level of quiet and calm as it usually is, but insistent enough that Parrot stops mid-sentence. “Just…let me help, okay? As a thank you, for, you know. Getting me out.”
“Wifies, bro,” Parrot turns back over his shoulder, finally meeting Wifies eyes again, “You do not need to thank me for that dude, I’m the one who got you involved in the first place.”
Wifies does his little smile again, “I want to thank you anyway, for getting me involved. It was kinda fun, y’know.”
They stare at each other, Parrot’s mind spinning in circles from the absurdity of it all. He can feel his plumage puffing up and so he turns away again, shaking his head, “You’re actually weird bro. Just do the thing.”
Wifies snorts, “Whatever you say, Parrot.”
He moves his arms again, this time bringing them all the way to land on top of Parrot's shoulders, above his wings. He pats him on the shoulders once before dropping his hands back down to focus on one of his wings. He gently, as if handling a brewing stand full of instant damage potions, sweeps one hand down the expanse of his secondary and tertiary feathers, the ones closer to his spine. He presses down so lightly that even when his fingers do smooth over an irritant it doesn’t hurt, instead the gentle pressure only helps Wifies notice it as well.
He must feel the wing twitch as he stills, “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, just itches right there. Might be a dead feather,” he suggests.
Wifies hums, and rubs his fingers over the area again, “Here?” He asks.
“Yeah.”
“I can see it,” Wifies tells him, voice tinged with a little bit of surprise, “It’s all like, bent weird.”
“You’re bent weird,” Parrot mutters.
“Okay so like what does that even mean?” There’s the same strange feeling as there always is when one of his feathers isn’t laying flat, Wifies taking his instruction and moving to slowly pull on the edge of the feather until it comes undone and finally the spot doesn’t itch anymore.
“Woah,” Wifies hums.
Parrot glances over his shoulder and sees the other man holding a, admittedly weirdly bent, teal feather and spinning it between his thumb and pointer. It’s about the size of his palm, and it looks completely ordinary. He has no idea what would’ve inspired a ‘woah’ about it.
“Oh yeah you can just, like, burn those or something by the way,” he tells him.
Wifies whips his head back up at him, his eyebrows drawn together, “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? What else is there to do with them?”
“I mean….I dunno,” Wifies doesn’t seem particularly happy about it but he agrees anyway, putting the feather down between his crossed legs.
They spend the next while sitting in steady quiet, the sound of fire crackling and wind hitting the window keeping them company. Eventually though, they start chatting again, about thoughtless topics to fill the silence. Wifies, annoyingly true to his word, figures it out pretty quickly. He needs next to no instruction, confidently going about the task like it's something he’s done his whole life.
It makes it easy to settle into the situation, Parrot lets his shoulders slump as they talk, eyes sliding to be half lidded as he truly lets himself relax for the first time since this whole fiasco had started. Wifies doesn’t mention it when he trails off, simply filling the air with his own voice. He talks about all kinds of redstone and books and a whole bunch of stuff that goes over Parrot’s head but he doesn’t mind. It’s nice to finally feel like part of a small 2 person flock again, to have a friend who doesn’t mind being thorough in helping him preen.
Finally, Wifies is back, and maybe Parrot won’t have to worry about being alone for a while.