One fun fact about Tango Tek, well known by his friends and acquaintances, is that he is very much a rambler. It doesn't matter the subject, subject's complexity, or energy he has for talking, if he is bored, he will ramble.

The unfortunate victim of bored, chatterbox Tango today was his brand new canary friend. However, surprisingly enough, the little yellow bird didn't seem to mind.

"You know, I really should've spent more time learning survival techniques. They would be really useful right about now. At least I don't need any survival skills to start a fire, though! Got it all right here in the fingies," Tango held up one hand, giving the canary a brief demonstration of his abilities, willing the tips of his fingers on fire. The canary tipped its head, entertained somewhat. He let the flames dance around for a moment or so before snuffing them back out.

"But but but," he tutted, "Even with my extraordinary fire starting skills, I am... still gonna get lost. Heck, I already am lost!"

Tango stopped walking for a moment and made a slow 360, hands on his hips. He really didn't have the faintest clue where he was, but the goal for now was to just keep going in the same direction, and eventually he'd reach something.

"It'll be fine. Onwards!" Tango exclaimed, taking a big step forward and continuing on. "Keep your eyes peeled for a river, little birdy. Towns are usually built near rivers, so if we find a river, we can follow it to civilization!" he made jazz hands on the last word.
The canary peeped happily, seeming to do a little dance from where it sat on his shoulder.

"Aww," Tango cooed, petting the bird genty.

The canary was a strange creature, he had begun to realize. It seemed oddly domesticated, as if it were a pet bird, but it had been living in the wilderness. Tango doubted it had seen many other people before him as well, because this wood was a specifically avoided one. To be fair, he wasn't sure he was in the same wood any more, but the dark forest where he had found the bird wasn't one people went to.

Well, also, the canary had found him, to be fair. Tango wasn't quite sure why it was following him around either. His best guess was that it had been a pet, its owner had gotten rid of it, and it had wandered all the way out here.

But the canary couldn't talk, so Tango supposed he'd never really know. If it really did want to stick around though, he supposed he could at least give it a name.

"What should I call you, little fella?" Tango turned over his hand and held his palm out, and the bird stepped on. "Well, I don't know the slightest about bird genders, so I guess it'll have to be neutral. Fluffy? ...Feathers?"

The canary squawked and shook their head as if they understood and were disagreeing with him.

"...Yellowface Squawker McLoudloud!" Tango declared, grinning. The canary was astonished, or maybe horrified, their beak opening slowly in disbelief. "Okay, just Yellow for short then."

The canary ruffled their feathers a little, but seemed to agree.

"Well now, Yellow, what do you say we take a little snack break?" Tango asked, letting Yellow hop back onto his shoulder. He knew they couldn't understand or answer the question, but a part of him wished they could. Just so that he'd have someone to really talk to.

But, a break definitely was in order. Tango wasn't sure how long he'd been walking, but the sun was fairly high in the sky, from what he could see through the thick leaves above, and his legs were rather tired. He took a glance around and spotted a large reddish rock with a fairly flat top, and he headed towards it.

Tango took a seat, and swung his bag down onto the remaining space on the rock. Yellow fluttered from his shoulder down to his knee, looking up at him with wide, shiny puppy eyes. (Since when could birds do puppy eyes???) Tango sighed and laughed a little at the canary, before unzipping his bag and rummaging around inside.

In amongst his unnecessary amount of redstone knickknacks, he eventually found his loaves of bread and jam jar, which were definitely not stolen. He was surprised and thankful that the jam jar somehow hadn't broken, because it had been a very exciting thing to s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶– find.

Tango tore one loaf of bread into haphazard slices that were really just semi-even chunks, and he put the others away for later, Yellow eyeing him the whole time. Giving in to Yellow's adorable stare, Tango held out a handful of crumbs for the bird. Yellow began pecking at them hungrily, and Tango only realized after the canary had inhaled his entire handful that survival tactics wise, it probably wasn't smart to let Yellow eat his rations.

That thought, however, was brief, quickly lost in Tango's pleasure in dipping his bread in the jam and shoveling it into his mouth.

He finished off the bread fast, with plenty of jam to spare as well. Tango screwed the jam jar's top back on and put it away, while Yellow practically vacuumed up any remaining crumbs on his lap.

"I'm starting to think you just stuck around because of the food in my bag, Yellow," Tango noted, chuckling a little. In all seriousness though, Yellow had likely just smelled his food, Tango realized, and that was why they had stuck around. It was a little sad to realize that the bird hadn't just simply taken a liking to him, but Tango tried to push that thought to the back of his mind. He needed to stay positive.

"Well," he continued, "If you did just stay for food, we can have more snacks after we make some more progress. Now... which direction did we need to go in..." Tango... definitely hadn't gotten turned around already, from simply taking a break to sit down. It was... he'd been going... this way? Or that way? He spun on his heel a couple of times, trying to pinpoint the directions.

"Wait, I can use like, compass directions or something, north, south, east, west and all that" he brainstormed aloud. "I can use the sun for east and west, except I can barely see it through the trees and it's noon right now so that's no use for a little while– oh! Moss on trees! That's a direction thing right? Like, that moss only grows on the north side of trees... or is it south..." Tango trailed off, grumbling in frustration.

He didn't know anything! He couldn't do anything! Maybe he could just scream at the top of his lungs and someone would hear him! Maybe he could... he could...

"I don't know what to do," He whined in a small voice, sinking back down onto the rock.

It was starting to set in that he really was in a predicament. He swallowed, trying to shove his despair back down his throat. He didn't want this. He didn't want to be lost forever in this void-forsaken forest with these dumb scraggly trees and this random canary that was tugging on his sleeve with it's beak insistently–

Wait.

Tango looked down at Yellow, his spiral starting to slow. When they noticed they'd gotten his attention, they let go of his sleeve and hopped up and down a couple times, looking at Tango hopefully and making a happy chittering noise.

Yellow fluttered up from the rock, landing on a low hanging tree branch just a little away, jerking their head a little, almost as if they wanted Tango to follow them. Deciding to humor the bird, Tango got up from the rock and walked over to them.

"I'm pretty sure this wasn't the direction I was going before," He told Yellow, peering through the trees ahead. Yellow huffed, and flew down from the branch. Tango quickly outstretched his arm for them to land on, but instead they grabbed his sleeve again mid flight, trying to tug him in the direction they wanted.

Tango sighed, and gave in. "Okay, fine, we'll go this direction." Yellow peeped excitedly, letting go of his sleeve and zooming ahead, but not out of sight. "But if you lead me to my death I will never forgive you," he laughed.

Yellow was fast, and Tango almost had to run to keep up with them. It was hard, since Yellow could fly much faster than Tango could walk. They started a pattern of scouting forward, and then flying back to Tango with exciting peeps and chirps, and doing their best to lead him onwards.

Tango decided he had nothing to lose by following the canary. They clearly knew the woods, at least better than Tango did. And, if nothing came out of it, and he did in fact get lost, at least Yellow's happy expression and demeanor made up for it.

He let Yellow lead for a while. Long enough, in fact, that he realized it was starting to get late in the afternoon, and that it might even start to get dark soon. He slowed down, looking around for a clearing of some kind where he could take a break again.

Yellow was upset by this, looping around behind him and nudging him forwards from behind.

"We're gonna have to stop soon Yellow, I don't wanna travel at night," Tango explained, coming to a full stop and trying to wave the canary away. Yellow squawked indignantly, feathers ruffling. Instead of listening to Tango's concerns, they shot forward into the trees and out of sight.

Tango heard rustling in the foliage for a moment before Yellow shot back out again. The canary took his sleeve in their beak again and forcefully tried to pull him forward. When Tango didn't move, staring grumpily, Yellow let go and started flitting around almost desperately.

They hopped from branch to branch and zipped about desperately in the air, until they finally came to a stop sitting on the ground directly in front of Tango. They let out their loudest chirp, and Tango finally gave in once more, and followed the bird.

"I don't know what's so exciting up ahead," He hummed, and started walking again. He was tired, he wanted to take a break, but this dang bird was so excited, he might as well see what it was all about. "We really should stop for the night. I don't know if birds have sleep schedules, but I do, and I would very much like to have a nap. And some more food. Then we can keep go–"

Tango cut himself off as he stepped past the next few trees.

Right in front of him was a path. The canary had led him to a path.

"Void above–" Tango let out a happy laugh, jumping onto the path in all of its gravelly glory. Civilization! Yellow had led him to something man-made and beautiful and he was going to get out of the forest!

"Oh Yellow, you clever, clever birdy!" He was jumping with glee at this point. The canary had on a smug 'I told you so' expression, but was dancing around with happiness as well. "How- how did you find this?!" He asked breathlessly, and the bird didn't offer him an answer.

Tango allowed himself another moment to revel in the relief that the path brought, before looking around to get his bearings straight.

Down the path to the left, there was a sign. A sign with the name of a town, a town he recognized, and beyond the sign, the path began to shift into cobblestone instead of gravel. "You led me to a town," Tango murmured to the canary in disbelief.

"You're incredible, Yellow!" he exclaimed, and skipped forward on the path, his genious bird following close behind.

— • — A/N — • —

Short I know. Cliffhanger, I know, and I'm not sorry lol.

Congratulations Tango! He made it out of the woods without falling into a single river! And as for that town, anyone care to guess what it is? (I'll give you a hint, it's from Empires s2)

See you in the next one!