Mystery Of The Enchanted Treasure

Scene 1: Trapped In Paradise

In a sunny forest, next to a stream, a mostly-blue bird rests on a leaning chair made from twigs and hay — an unconventional nest for an unconventional bird.

"Yeah!" The bird shouts, stretching his long neck and singing to himself. "I love my new home, love sitting in my favorite spot," he hooks his feet into his chair, using his thin legs to propel himself forward and into the water, "down by the babbling brook!"

He splashes out of the water, flapping his large wings to bring him to a nearby tree branch. "Sing it, Whizzer!" He says as he lands, only to realize "Wait, that's me. Right."

He launches off the tree branch and back to the ground by his chair, pleasantly tired out from his game. He grabs some nuts from a pile he made earlier, laying back and adding "Eating lovely nuts, doo-aah. Do-do-hmm-mm..."

He holds one of the nuts up to his big orange beak, trying to pry it open, still singing around it. "You just stick 'em in your beak and you crack 'em in two." Not that this particular nut was cracking, mind you. He's using both wings and his beak to try to pry the thing apart, still muttering his increasingly-frustrated song. "Som-sometimes it's hard 'cause the shells aren't soft."

He opens his beak as wide as it can go, voice barely intelligible as he declares "And I'm gonna give it all I got!" before crunching down as hard as he can on the nut.

It still won't crack! What is up with this thing?! He stares at it in hopeless befuddlement for a moment, disbelieving that he's been defeated by a nutshell.

"Then" he grins, standing up and pulling the wing with the nut back "chuck it the babbling brook!" He twists to throw it behind him, muttering and giggling as it splashes.

He sits back down, dusting off his wings, no longer singing. "Aah, what a place I've found!" He says to none but the forest around him, the sky above him, and the water below him. He spreads his wings out, voice rising happily as he leans most of the way back "Not a caaare in the world! It's a bird's dream, really."

He settles down with a contented sigh, ready to nap in lieu of enjoying some nuts. Oh well, it's still nice here. Much better than his last nesting ground — the sheer amount of predators in that swamp, let me tell you; but there's almost none here, nothing to trick or trap him, nothing to chase him down, nothing to fear.

A mechanical clicking and rattling startles him from his doze, making him yell and dart his gaze around, trying to find the source of the noise that had disturbed him. He spots a pulley, hidden among the brush, and follows it with his eyes to find... A cage?!

"What?!" He squawks. Is a little rest really that much to ask for, universe? Apparently it is, as he barely dodges the falling cage with several yelps before it crushes his little chair. He stares with a wing on his chest, breathing fast and eyes wide, not wanting to consider what that might've done to him.

(Killed him or caught him — either way, not a great choice).

A snapping twig draws him from his shock just in time to dodge a human with a butterfly net.

"Woah! Look out! Hold on!" He half protests, half just yells in a panic as he dashes away through the forest, hopping over roots and stones as he barely manages to stay ahead of his pursuer.

"Oh great, the honeymoon's over." He complains to himself, looking over his shoulder as he runs. All he wanted was a little peace, but noooo. His life is always the same, running from predators or humans or other birds. Just once, he'd like to have the option of a quiet life. A real option. Just once. "No more living the life of Riley for me."

He screams as the net comes down way too close to him, from a completely different direction than he thought the human was, knocking him to the ground.

"I'm getting out of here." He decides. Well, it's not a decision so much as a statement of what he's already doing, but it makes him feel better to pretend he has enough control over his life to decide. He leaps up, nearly falling into the net that's suddenly there but managing to propel off of it and into the water.

He frantically swims, only for the net to follow him, forcing him out onto a different shore. He runs as fast as he can, but he knows he can't last much longer. He's breathing hard, his thin legs are aching, and the net gets closer each time. He ducks, only not getting caught thanks to the net barely sticking on the two rocks he jumped between.

"Come on, legs, don't fail me now!" He runs through a hollow log, peeking out of the temporary hiding spot as he demands his body keep going. The net swipes in front of him, forcing him out of the log's meager safety and back to his mad dash. He can't handle this, he's not a ground bird, he isn't made for these high-endurance runs! Wait...

"What am I running for?!" He asks himself, incredulous and faintly embarrassed underneath the fear. "I should be flying for crying out loud, I'm a bird!"

"Yeow!" He shouts, launching above the ground. Why the Hell didn't he think of this sooner? Humans can do a lot of things, but the most certainly can't fly. Unfortunately, they do have very tall bodies with long arms, and butterfly nets have long sticks.

After all that running and dodging and tiring himself out, he flies straight into the net barely a few seconds after he takes off, squished against it as a hand closes around the opening.

He gulps as he's hung upside down, one thought running in a terrified repeat through his brain: he's trapped.