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Green is Parrot’s favorite color.
Yellow is Theo’s.
Parrot’s wings are fountains of color - like the arrival of spring. Orange plucked from wild poppies; green stolen from tender, freshly-grown leaves; blue cupped from serene lakes.
Theo’s wings are quiet, muted - like a winter sunset. Pale yellow taken from the distant, clouded sun; light gray ripped from the clouds, promising snow, overhead.
Ironic, how their wings are the exact opposite of who they are.
On weeks where they start to molt, the green and yellow feathers are first to go, drifting down to the spruce floor, marking out places where they were. A memory in a feather. Parrot’s always the first one to sweep - to hide them away. Rather not face the blunt, cut tips of his feathers - snapped from holding too much weight and too much hurt, the feeling of them still lingering there like an unwanted memory - an unwanted ghost. A phantom. You should have a feather here but you don’t, you should have a best friend but you don’t.
But some days - winter days where the past seems to weigh too heavily on Parrot and pins him to the green bed in the corner - Theo will be the one to sweep the floor. He’s awkward with a broom and pan, still unused to the feel of something else besides his sword. Not comfortable with sharing a space so closely with someone else. Trusting them completely, with his life, is something new to him. He’ll sweep, and the feathers - yellow and green - will fly into the air, a bit like the sparks of a fading totem, enveloping him for a moment.
Sometimes, Parrot will crack his eyes open and smile, because their friendship is a totem to him - a second, third, fourth chance. A last chance.