Is Parrot dead (Monty Python pun intended)? I've lost track of the different Perl 6 implementations and their subparts.

Then you should maybe have a look at MoarVM (https://moarvm.org). It is now the main backend for Raku (née Perl 6) and is all that Parrot was intended to be, and then some. If you want to get into it, you might want to have a look at https://github.com/edumentab/rakudo-and-nqp-internals-course (course materials that implemented a Ruby and a PHP on MoarVM).