Fair(l)y Observant

Aurora found Zephyrillium hiding in a tree. She flew over to him and sat next to him on the branch. At first he didn’t notice her as he peered between the gaps in the maple leaves, but when he saw her leaning over and looking, he only pressed his finger to his lips.

“What are you watching?” she whispered to him after an uncomfortable silence.

He glared at her and shushed her again, but after yet another uncomfortable silence, once he realized that she wasn’t going to leave, he whispered back, “Humans.” He pushed aside some leaves and with a narrow finger pointed down at a pair of humans walking along the path below the tree. “I’m observing them.”

Aurora watched the two humans go. One carried a large stick, and the other one looked at a map. “How could anybody get by without wings?” she wondered aloud.

Zephyrillium readied to shush her again, but stopped. Aurora’s attention was now entirely on the humans. He cleared his throat. “I think they’re used to it,” he said. “I’ve been observing them for quite some time, and I’ve learned quite a few interesting things.”

Aurora looked over at him, her rainbow eyes sparkling to match her wings. “Oh, do tell,” she said.

Zephyrillium nodded. “For starters, did you know that they live in houses made of trees?”

Aurora cocked her eyebrow. “I didn’t know trees had cavities that large,” she said.

Zephyrillium shook his head. “No,” he said. “They take a bunch of trees and turn that into a house.”

Aurora wrinkled her brown. “Do they tie them together when they’re saplings, then?”

“No,” said Zephyrillium. “They move the trees from where they are to make the houses. They prefer to use the older trees.”

“Gee, Zeph,” she said, looking over at him, “it seems like it would be hard to move an old tree. I mean, not even the dryads can move too much once they’re nice and settled.”

“Aurora,” said Zephyrillium, “they cut the trees down and use those to build their houses.”

Aurora’s eyes went wide. “Who would cut down a tree?” she said.

Zephyrillium pointed at the humans.

One of the humans pulled a shiny rectangle out of its pocket. It beeped and chirped.

“Do they have a bird in that shiny thing?” Aurora asked. A look of concern grew on her face.

“No,” said Zephyrillium. “That’s something called a fone. From what I can tell, it’s what they use to communicate with their gods.”

Aurora looked at Zephyrillium, wondering if he was putting her on.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Every few minutes, it chirps to get their attention. They pull it out and look at it. Sometimes they hold it to their faces and talk to it, sometimes, they hold it out and let it see things with it’s strange eye on the back, and even sometimes they look at its changing patterns on its front, every once in a while, giving it a pet, like you would a chipmunk or a vole.”

Aurora stood on the branch and leaned forward. “What strange creatures,” she said. In moving, she jostled the branch, sending a few samaras spiraling down. As they descended, she saw one of the humans hold the fone up toward the samaras. This one had a cluster of three eyes on its back. The thing made a strange sound, almost like a stick breaking or a cicada chirping, and with that done, the two admired the color-changing side before tucking the fone back into a pocket.

Aurora sat back down on the branch next to Zephyrillium. “Next you’ll tell me that they spend their lives collecting stones and baubles, putting them in their cut-down-tree-houses and showing them to their fones all in some desire to gain status among one another.”

Zephyrillium laughed. It was so loud that both the humans stopped what they were doing and looked up at the maple. It was Aurora’s turn to glare at Zephyrillium.

One human looked at the other and shrugged. “Never heard a bird like that before,” it said.

The other one said, “It could have been a squirrel.”

A fone chirped. One of the humans looked at it. “We have to get going,” it said to the other. 

Together they walked off.

Aurora watched their departure. “They’re gone,” she said when she could no longer see them. Zephyrillium had clamped both hands over his mouth. He slowly removed them. “They almost saw us, Zeph,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Zephyrillium said. “That last one was too funny. Collecting baubles and showing them to the fones. Where do you ever get such ideas?”

Aurora shook her head before flying off. “Humans,” she said, shaking her head.