When Mother gets it in her head to insist on something I do not get much opportunity to debate the subject before her orders have been executed around me. Someone, possibly Mercutioodon - let her know that the rebels are planning an event in the town that services our estate. Though there exists a risk of assassination, our local royalty desire attendance and she will not allow her family to fail to put in an appearance at any nearby social event which has royal attendees.

That the royalty in question is Mercutioodon’s own nestling, Trooaris, should have nothing to do with my choice as the one to make a showing. But I am certain that it does. Mother does not ignore my friendships. As her only blue it is on me to be well positioned to her estates when she retires and my career as a drone operator means that my best chance for handling her estates is to be partnered well. And Mercutioodon is not a fitting partner for anyone, but he is well positioned to introduce someone who may be. Like Trosaline.

Like those in Trooaris’s orbit. So with a costume shoved in my hands I have summarily been placed upon a copter and am riding to a town I have only visited once before with only a vague notion of what this event should be.

Mercutioodon’s human companion is notably absent, but my friend has been holding back laughter for the entire ride. I’m fair certain that our driver will turn this copter right around and never deposit us upon our destination if Mercutioodon does not manage to keep his gleeful cackling to himself.

I watch the trees pass below my feet and feel the breeze against my claws. It is a pleasant reminder of the glider I rode as a child before the exodus. I miss flying freely in friendly skies. These are anything but that. I watch the approach of a tall water tower that protrudes from the top of the hill before I spot any other buildings.

It is not a large town, but it has been built at the side of a large oxbow lake, where some former resident of note had a memorial park constructed in their honor. The little streets that spiderweb their way around the meeting point of two large thoroughfares provide a framework around which squat little buildings of brick and metal huddle for companionship. We cannot approach too close, as a grain elevator has been marked as a mutually agreed no fly zone and we are sure to be shot down by friendly fire should we approach too close to that protected structure. It is understood that the grain feeds both our human subjects and the rebel forces, but it also feeds our most necessary livestock without which we cannot have our entire civilization.

It is a delicate balance.

We land on the roof of a civilian fuel depot, which gives us a convenient place to change our clothing. And which enlightens me as to why, precisely, Mercutioodon thought our situation so desperately hilarious.

While Mercutioodon has an appropriate and well-fitting costume, I have to stuff myself into something created for a human. It is inflatable. I do not know what the affect is, but he most certainly finds it hilarious when I emerge from changing my garments and am wearing this atrocious getup. Mercutioodon has on a hat and a smart little vest.

“Tickets please,” he asks me when I approach.

I do not know the reference. He howls with laughter.

When he collects himself, we make our plodding way down the empty paved road to the quaint memorial park upon the waterfront. His tail hopping movement is awkward, but he is so well adjusted to the disability that it hinders him not one bit in being able to keep a normal walking pace. If we had to make a run for it, I suspect he would need assistance.

It is a little bit of a hike. The sun sinks below the horizon as we approach, which brings out the sparkle in the strings of tiny lights that hang from the poles around the park. Dozens of individuals, mostly human, mill around the communal space, talking in low voices and sipping drinks. A group work together to assemble instruments under a little gazebo lit more densely with more of the string lights.

We are not the only people in attendance. I spot Trooaris’s bright gold plumage easily, even though he is formally incognito. He raises an amber glass bottle to Mercutioodon in recognition, and I am immediately abandoned by my friend. The band begins its tuning and I clumsily wander in search of sustenance or a friendly face, whichever should appear first.

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And it is Mercutioodon’s human companion that I recognize first. The man has on a military uniform of some sort, complete with a hat and hanging metal tags around his neck. The man chats comfortably with a cluster of other humans who I do not recognize.

One of their number wears a mockery of my own blue plumage, complete with a set of tail feathers spread pridefully and absurdly wide. She jingles as she walks, with bells on her ankles and much of her skin exposed. I feel rather insulted by the insinuations of such a display. Us blues are not universally prone to posturing and vanity. I have not even exposed a single one of my feathers in this ridiculous getup of mine and I am not pleased to think that the humans see us so badly.

It is only after the insult to every representative of my entire caste steps away from the group that I can even see the others through the seething anger that clouds my vision.

And there is another human dressed in feathers. But she is every single thing that the walking insult is not. And her feathers are as white as pure sugar. She looks like everything innocent and pure, perched upon the back of a bench and occasionally sipping from a red plastic cup. A mask covers her eyes and nose, with white feathers ringing her eyes and a black beak protruding forward. More white feathers cover her hair, and a delicate black wire crown sits at the top of her head. It almost looks like adult display feathers on a child.

I am entirely confused.

It is not possible for me to walk normally in this ridiculous costume, but I find my feet carrying me in the white feathered human’s direction of their own accord. I am mesmerized by the contrasts. She looks at once a child and a woman and relaxed and utterly on edge. Something in how she holds herself shows a tension in her shoulders that sits at odds with the party atmosphere and the way she sits.

This costume was not made for someone who actually has a tail. And that means I am not able to fan my feathers when I bow slightly to her, and I can only lower my head so far.

Her friends cheer my costume, but there are too many of them talking at once for me to follow what any individual is saying. I am lost and confused and I do not know why I even thought that approaching this human was at all a good idea but I am here anyway and now what do I do.

She surprises me by standing gracefully to her full height without leaving the bench. We are close in height, and I would only be taller than her if I extended my neck in a most preposterous fashion. She looks down on me from the bench and then gives me a dramatic bow.

The skirt she wears sticks out in a stiff circle all around her waist, and a set of little feathers adorn her forearms. The ribbons around her wider ankles recall the scaled skin of a person’s narrow ones. She is, for all her humanity, beautiful.

And I cannot reconcile that with my understanding of humanity. They are not even people. They do not have the capacity for proper caste peer relationships. But she, in her childlike costume, has accomplished all that my many attempts to read their literature has failed to achieve. I am actually interested in knowing more about a human.

“Dig the costume. Hey, what’s your name?” she asks me, and I realize that the costume has accomplished a great deal in my favor. “I don’t recognize you with that thing on.”

“Tromeo,” comes out extremely muffled. I pantomime an attempt to put my hand to my ear but restricted by this usefully disguising costume I am not able to reach. There is almost no way she could have understood what I attempted to say.

She lowers her head to where my face ought to be and I try again, but over the sound of the band tuning their instruments not at all far away and through the fabric she cannot hear me clearly enough. I fumble through a gesture that points to the more brightly lit perimeter of the gathering. There is a bright yellow vehicle parked directly under a light and several others nearby. It looks like a safe place, and the distance from the band should make it a much better place to talk.

She nods and I see the expression that the literature calls a smile cross her face. Lightly hopping from the bench and delicately stepping around her other friends, she leads me over to the lot. I am able to attend to her graceful movements most closely, and note her very properly upright posture. She does not even slouch like a human.

When we get clear of the noise I ask her for her name.

“July,” she answers, taking a sip from her drink. “And I’m sorry, I am sure I misheard you earlier. Did you say your name is Tromeo?”

“Yes,” I answer, “it’s the name my mother gave me. Isn’t yours a month?”

“It’s the name my mother gave me.” She shrugs, looking me over curiously. “I don’t meet many people with names like a Troo.”

“I don’t meet many people with names that are also a month.” I shock myself with the rudeness, but she only laughs in reply. Maybe the costume is giving me a kind of courage to be improper that I would never have without it. Or maybe there are no rules for interacting correctly with a human and that has freed me to be any terrible thing I can be.

Perhaps I can even be a dinosaur.