Parrothead in Paradise

by PastCat

Chapter 9

We made it back to Home Base just before dinner was ready. Emmy had managed to make some kind of salad using some wild greens that she and Nic had found growing in some long-gone resident’s garden. When we asked what it was and if it was poisonous, she laughed and said it was perfectly safe and that she had tested it to be sure. We told them about the tunnel at Diamond Head with all of the names. Nic was enthusiastic. “We should carve our names there too.” He said. “I think we ought to leave our mark at least somewhere.”

“Before we carve our names anywhere like that, we should make sure it doesn’t have anything else first.” Emmy said. “I was reading the Guide when you guys were gone and it said something about how magic can be intrinsically connected with names and writing. I don’t want to carve my name somewhere only to find that I accidentally signed a contract to do something and been forced to do it by magic.” she shivered.

“That’s only in fairy tales.” Adam scoffed.

“What do you think we’re in, birdbrain?” Emmy countered. “Last I checked, the only stories involving flying horses were in either ancient Greek myths or fantasy novels meant for moony teens to fantasize about meeting their prince charmings. I know you don’t want to, but you need get it through your thick skull that all of this is real. Magic is real and little cutesy ponies like us can use it and have real results come from it. I don’t want to accidentally get myself killed or worse because we did not read the magical equivalent of the fine print.”

“Oh really, then why haven’t you been trying to find out a way to magic us off this island and back home? Or even a way to turn us back into normal people, huh?” Adam stood with his wings flaring, ready for a brawl. I’m not sure he realized he was doing it. Whether his conscious mind realized it or not, he sure reacted like a pegasus.

“Have you even looked at anything in the Guidebook? It would take someone with a special talent for magic to do either of those things, and if you turned back into a human being anyway you wouldn’t survive more than a minute before being torn to pieces by the magic that turned us all into creatures in the first place. Get your head out of your arse and deal with what is, not what you think it should be.” By now Emmy was shouting at Adam. Her horn held a glow that I could only describe as menacing. The two ponies circled each other, not breaking eye contact. Nic, Trish, and I stood aside, watching. I did not want to get in the middle of a fight between two magical ponies who didn’t know the extent of what they were capable of. None of us did.

The fight broke up before it could get physical by the looming presence of Doc. Evidently he had slept off his euphoria at acquiring his gemstone stash and had decided to come out for dinner. “Enough!” He barked. He reached out his long arms and shoved Emmy and Adam apart. The glow around Emmy’s horn subsided and Adam’s wings slammed into his sides in surprise. Doc grunted in satisfaction. “Break it up, both of you. The more we fight and argue, the harder it will be to stay alive here. There is safety in numbers, and unless you--” He pointed to Adam, “know how to cook for yourself and find food that won’t make you ill enough to make you wish you were dead and you--” Now he pointed to Emmy, “can magically gain a sense of direction that won’t get yourself lost again, I suggest you come to an accord. Right. Now.” He stomped his foot in the dirt to punctuate those last words.

Adam and Emmy both shrunk away from him. Both looked guilty as sin too. “S-sorry, Doc. I don’t know what came over me.” Adam said first. “I’ve just been so frustrated these last couple of days. It feels like everybody has been lecturing me and then going off and doing what I did initially to get lectured without getting in trouble for it. I guess the hypocrisy was annoying me.” He turned to Emmy. “Sorry for blowing up at you. You’re right; I should try reading the Guidebook. I still don’t want to believe it completely, but I’ll try to keep an open mind. I’ve just been a skeptic for so long that everything about all of this rubs me the wrong way..”

“It's strange for all of us. Heck, you and Parrothead Zoe were preening each other’s wings the other morning. It looked like you were adapting just fine. I have been spending almost every waking minute trying to figure out how to get the spike sticking out of my forehead,” Emmy gestured to her horn, “to do what I need it to do. I was worried -- am still worried -- about how safe we really are in this new reality. After all how do we know that the monsters from those old myths and stories didn’t appear too? I guess I was afraid we would find ourselves running into a gorgon or sea monster and not knowing what to do because it was all ‘just a story’ in our minds.” She shook her head.

“We are all working through this,” Trish said gently. She stepped forward and gave Emmy a comforting nuzzle. “I think every one of us has been thinking and wondering what is going to happen to us and whether we are going to see any of our families or friends again. Maybe instead of deciding what to do tomorrow around the fire, we should spend tonight thinking about and sharing with each other something of ourselves before all of this happened. I mean, I personally only knew Zoe before this, and that was because she found me on Facebook and we became pen pals.” She nodded towards me. “I didn’t get to meet any of you in person until the first day of class. So that’s what… a week of knowing each other as humans and almost as long now as something else?”

There were murmurs of agreement at that. Doc nodded towards the makeshift benches we had set up around the cookfire. We each took one along with a bowl of Emmy’s salad. After some awkward silence, Doc said “I might as well start, seeing as you all were my students. Still are, I guess. My name is James Carlysle. I was the professor of archaeology here at University of Hawaii for the last three years. My focus of study has been the settlement of Pacific islands by Polynesian boat travellers. I have worked on Easter Island as well as numerous islands in the south Pacific. I was married to Sarah, my lovely wife, for twenty years before she passed away due to cancer a couple of years ago. My son and grandsons all live in Seattle. I was considering taking up an opening at a university up there to be closer to them.

“My daughter, Mary, lived here in Honolulu. Her place… Adam and I found it. Nothing left really, but I did find this.” He dangled a gold locket on a chain. “It still has a baby picture of my first granddaughter in it. She would have turned two at the end of the summer.” He fell silent. There were tears in his eyes and Adam scooted closer and wrapped a wing around the Diamond Dog. Doc whimpered a little and said in a small voice, “I miss them so much.” We were all silent for a few minutes after that.

“I can go, I guess,” Emmy said into the silence. “My name is Emmaline Schneider. I was born and raised in San Matteo, California. I lived with my dad and his husband and my older sister, Virginia. Pop and Daddy were software engineers who met not long after Dad divorced Mom. Ginny and I decided we would rather live with Pop and Daddy because they lived closer to where Ginny and I were going to school than Mom did. Mom ended up moving to New York a couple years back, so we didn’t really see her much.” She hugged herself and shivered. “Ginny is still back in Cali studying marine biology. I swear that girl could swim before she could walk. Hope whatever she comes back as or came back as loves the water too.

“As for how I ended up here this summer, I’ve always thought that the way to the heart of a person is through their stomach. One of my professors believed that too and taught a course about culinary customs around the world. That got me into anthropology and since I needed a field study credit anyway, why not go somewhere with unique food?” She chuckled a little. “At least the magic stuff seemed to agree.” Sure enough, the mark on her flank was of a vine circling a platter of food. She nodded to Nic that he should go next.

Nic shuffled to a more comfortable position on his log. “All right. My name is Nicholas Buckley. I decided to come out here for field school for two reasons. One was to see the island and maybe get in some surfing and the other was to get away from my clinging ex-girlfriend. Best decision I’ve ever made. When one of my professors heard about this trip,he recommended me for it. He knew about Anne and how she had been stalking me, so I am doubly grateful to him. Here’s to you, Dr. Bartmann!” He raised a cup of water to the stars and drank.

After he’d finished his swig, he continued. “I used to spend my summers with my uncles on their fishing boat near LA, running charters for the rich guys who wanted to catch something that looked more impressive than whatever their buddies caught. They usually ended up drinking like fishes at the bar instead and we would let them pose with something interesting afterwards.” He shrugged and smiled. “My uncles taught me everything they knew about sailing and I read a lot of what other people wrote. That led me to thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki, which got me interested in Pacific Islanders’ boats and sailing techniques.This was one of the best places I could find that could teach me more. Plus, this is where surfing was invented. I’ve always wanted to ride the waves on the North Shore.”

“So that’s why you’ve got a boat cutie mark?” prompted Emmy.

“I suppose so. I’ve always wanted to build my own craft and go voyaging. Never had the time or money to do it though. Figures.” Nic’s leg kicking the log in frustration nearly knocked it out from under him. Like the rest of us he was still trying to figure out his own strength. “You next, Trish?”

“Sure. My name is Patricia Cochran. I lived with my mom and my stepdad and our shih-tzus. I guess you could call me a bard, if we’re thinking in terms of D&D magic. I love how music can inspire people to do great things and wanted to be able to make my own and maybe teach others the same thing. I learned how to play a bunch of instruments: recorder, flute, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, ukelele. I played in high school and college for the love of music, but unfortunately that doesn’t translate into money.” She grimaced.

“I couldn’t play well enough to go professional and I wasn’t a good enough student to get into a program that would get me certified to be a music teacher, so I was stuck floundering a little in the school of education when I made a connection with Zoe, first on a D&D forum, then later on via Facebook. She told me what she was doing with anthropology and encouraged me to check it out. I thought, ‘why not? It’ll get me a social studies endorsement if I can get through it’, but that led me into how different cultures view and use music. Once I’d changed my major I talked to Zoe and found out that she was coming here, so I applied too. I guess that’s why my cutie mark is a double quaver.” The bottoms of the paired music note were hearts. I remembered the discussion we’d had in the music room. I suspected there was more to her talent than she thought, but I couldn’t say what it was yet.

I wrapped a wing around her in a sort of hug. “I can go next, if you guys don’t mind.” Trish nodded. “My name is Zoe Vogel. I was born and raised in Colorado, but decided to go to school in Iowa.” I rolled my eyes, “yeah unlike everybody else, I moved away from there and towards a fly-over state. Anyways, I moved away because I originally wanted to major in meteorology, but I ran into the problem that I can not for the life of me wrap my head around advanced math and physics. So I wound up failing those classes, but that same semester I found myself in a history class about Native Americans with a professor who also taught archaeology. I really liked the guy and took all of his anthro classes I could get away with before realizing I had enough credits to double in anthro and history. I just needed a field studies course, and unfortunately he wasn’t teaching one this summer. One of the other professors forwarded me an email about the field school here and I jumped at it. This summer, everyone in my family was doing something else anyway; my parents were going on a trip to Washington to visit my grandparents and my sister was studying abroad in Australia. I ended up here in the middle, getting their random text messages in the middle of the night. It was kind of annoying…” I paused with a sigh and Trish gave me a nuzzle. “But I miss them all the same. I’d do anything to get another message on that thing.” I pointed to the now-useless iphone still sitting in its case. “My dad is the one who got me into the music of Jimmy Buffett. I think that’s why I had that weird thing with that record. It’s the closest thing I have to something to remember him by.” I took a few deep breaths before I felt better. It helped having Trish next to me.

“I guess I’m last.” Adam said after a moment. “My name is Adam Falk. I was a grad student in archaeology and photography. Specifically my thesis was about the use of aerial photography via drones to pinpoint and identify archaeological sites without damaging the area around them. Doc recruited me to help with his survey of Easter Island a few years ago and I’ve been working with him every summer since. He’s the closest thing to family I have out here; I’m not really close to my parents or my siblings back on the mainland. They didn’t understand why I wanted to live out here Damn it, I was this close to my master’s degree too!” He shook his head in annoyance while we laughed. “I still think the name cutie mark is kind of stupid, so I will just say that my iconic ass has a picture of a flying camera because it would be too hard to draw a quadcopter on my butt.”

“Well, it suits you.” Doc said. “Every time we would go somewhere new, you always had a camera in hand. The first time we stuck a gopro on a kite to test that out, you were over the moon. If we manage to get you airborne with a camera, then you could be your own quadcopter!” We all laughed at that. Adam just blushed.

“Well I, for one, want to figure out these wings and how to fly on them.” I said, opening said appendages. “I feel like I’m on the very edge of grasping it but there is still something missing. I want to go back up to the peak at Diamond Head or maybe to the top of the Sleeping Giant again and maybe see if I can figure it out. Maybe you should come with me, Adam. Birds of a feather flock together and all that.”

Adam was quiet for a bit. “Do you really think we can do it? Fly with these little tiny wings, I mean. I just don’t think they were meant to carry something as big as we are. The physics do not add up to me.”

“Screw the physics. I already said I don’t understand the technical side of them anyway.” I said. “Besides, bumble bees are not supposed to be able to fly either, but they do. I feel like there is something missing for me as long as I stay on the ground. When we went up above the clouds I felt closer to that whatever it was than I ever have before. Maybe there’s something else I’m not getting here. I dunno. Faith, trust and pixie dust?”

Everyone laughed a little. I was glad the tension, though not completely absent, was lighter than it had been before. “All right, fine. I will go back up there with you, Parrothead. If you go splat, I have the right to say ‘I told you so’ when I meet you again in the afterlife.” Adam said.

“Bah, fine. Maybe I’ll be able to fly up there and give you the middle finger in return.” I said, then with a sigh, “I am never going to live down that nickname am I? After all, even before everything went haywire, people called Buffett fans Parrotheads. If it’s not too much to ask, could you come up with something else?”

“Sure. We can call you PH instead.” Emmy broke in. “It is faster to say anyways, and it’s not like you’re about to add another letter to that any time soon.”

“Nah, we already have a Doc.” I said.

We sat around trading stupid wordplay jokes and nicknames until we decided to turn in for the night and one by one headed towards our sleeping quarters. I climbed into my tree with the hammock nest hybrid. I caught Adam looking up at me speculatively.

“Hey, do you think we you could help me make one of those? I would like to try sleeping above the ground one of these days.” He said.

“Sure, unless you want to try playing with clouds like the horse birds in the Guide.” I said before making myself comfortable. Adam did not answer; he just grumbled something about cartoon physics and headed off to sleep.

Comments

[Dances With Unicorns]

Adam was quiet for a bit. “Do you really think we can do it? Fly with these little tiny wings, I mean. I just don’t think they were meant to carry something as big as we are. The physics do not add up to me.”

I think that is what is keeping Adam from flying. Sure wish a Star Wars fan could tell him the same advice that Yoda said to Luke in “THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK”, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”