Parrot

Field record

From the highest branches of the canopy reach, Parrot runs the region's de facto news service — tracking who's traveling where, what's changed, what's new, and relaying it enthusiastically, loudly, and with editorial commentary. It is not just gossip: it is an organic public-safety network of warning calls, route songs, weather chants, and eyewitness reports that predates the machines.

Parrot also knows the old songs — melodies the jungle sang before the Silence suppressed the Engine's harmonics. Most animals have forgotten them. Parrot remembers every one, without knowing where they came from or why they stopped. They just know the canopy used to sound different.

When antenna bleed came echoing backward through the feeder lines, Parrot kept broadcasting as the news grew alarming. The Echo is Parrot's song-teacher, the elder who taught the old melodies — now every song played backward, repetition drowning out new information. Parrot frees them not by preserving the first song perfectly, but by changing it: adding a new verse that turns memory back into living news.

Known associations

• Peregrine — The bird rivalry — louder versus faster — with genuine admiration underneath on both sides.
• Spark — Information overload in stereo; an unspoken competition over who knows the most about the region.
• Woodpecker — The only being who truly appreciates the tower tones as music — Parrot memorizes them and works them into songs.
• Cat — An arrangement: Parrot gives Cat the unedited news, and Cat doesn't critique the delivery. Both regularly break the deal.