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“That was actually really good!” Pirra chirped, swishing her feather drapes back and forth as she walked.

Alexander made a face.  She thought it was unhappy, but it was hard to tell.  “What did you like about it?”

“Well, the drama, the carnage, the sheer vitriol between the antagonists!  It’s all very much like a Dessei drama!”  She whistled a laugh.  “You know better than most how much we can hate each other!”

It was, she thought, legendary.  In many Dessei myths, enemies didn’t even want each other dead – they wanted the other to keep living so they could continue to torment each other.

“It was very fictionalized,” Alexander replied flatly.  “As in – nothing about it was true.”

“Sure, but it was entertaining fiction,” she commented.

“It feels weird, though,” he replied.  “An artist from another species makes what is supposed to be a historical epic and changes everything?  It’s not even a human story anymore, just loosely inspired by historic states that were at loggerheads over differing economic systems.”

“But the blood was so very crimson when it splattered,” Pirra said wistfully.  At Alexander’s look of surprise, she hastily added; “I mean, it’s fake, so it’s okay to enjoy it!”  She laughed again.  “Seeing blood fly like that in real life really isn’t something to enjoy, trust me.”

But in fiction she loved it!

“I just think maybe Klezul Hoshe should have talked to some human historians before writing it,” Alexander muttered.  “I mean – imagine if I wrote something like that with Dessei history!”

Pirra thought about it.  “Would there be a lot of blood?” she asked.

Alexander sighed.

“Ooh, who would you cast me as?” she teased, leaning in.  “A fictional princess named Lumii, perhaps?”

Alexander burst out laughing, taking her arm.

Even if he had not enjoyed the play, they had gotten a nice evening together.  He could not complain about that.

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Tred followed Jophiel through the hordes of people leaving the theater.

He felt crushed by their sheer numbers, but he’d long since learned how to keep his discomfort down.

It was fortunate that people gave Jophiel’s drone a wide berth.  Perhaps it was because of her diplomatic credentials, or perhaps because they did not want it to roll over their feet.  She had not mastered it yet, and had run over his a couple of times.

It hurt, but didn’t cause any damage, it just wasn’t heavy enough for that, so he’d not said anything.

Jophiel seemed to be leading them out of the crowd swiftly, taking the shortest path out.  Once she had pulled off to the side and he had ducked over with her, he stopped to catch his breath.

“That was . . . one dramatic play,” he said, looking down at his dress uniform.  Was that a red spot on it?  Had the actors actually splashed him with fake blood?

“It was very exciting!” Jophiel said, her voice raising in joy.  “Honestly, I did not even follow a lot of it, but so much happened!  The red fluid was ‘blood’, right?  It’s inside you normally?”

“Er, yeah,” Tred said, rubbing at the spot.  Maybe he’d stained it earlier and not even realized, it was a lighter shade of red than the fake blood . . .

“So when Ussa let it out of people, they did not like that?” Jophiel said.

Realization dawned on Tred as her words made him understand how much the play had been alien to her.

Her people did not have land; they lived in the plasma corona of a flare star.  They had no paucity of resources, as they lived on the energies of the star.  They did not age, had no sexes, no children . . . no families, really.  At least . . . as far as he knew.

He’d tried to read about them, how they made communities based on properties of plasma that seemed very arbitrary.  Their society was extremely complex, but also fluid.  It worked for them, but . . .  It made them so very, very alien.

“Yes, that was an act of hostility,” he said.  “In ancient Earth times, we did not always have enough for everyone.  Some people who were . . . selfish would take more than they needed and that meant others didn’t have enough.  She wanted everything, and while she was very powerful, it made everyone hate her.  Once she was gone, no one was sad.”

“So the others did not have enough but she had too much . . . and she would let their blood out – why?”

“To kill them,” he said.  “Without blood we die.”

She was silent a long time.  When she spoke, her words were softer.  “I understand.”

He did not know what to say after that.  Her sensor unit was still looking at him, but he did not know what she was thinking – what she could even be thinking.

“So did Ussa really exist?” she finally asked.

He stumbled out.  “I mean, that’s the gist of the story, but it’s also a metaphor for human history . . . or a part of it, at least.”

“So it’s not really what happened?”

“It’s . . . a creative way to talking about it without saying it directly.”

“Ah, yes!  I understand.  We do that, too, in our stories!  I can’t imagine a species not having some form of subtle storytelling, how else can we impart knowledge?”

“Yes, I agree!  Every species we’ve ever met has stories, and they always have some kind of teaching stories.”

“Do you think anyone will be upset at how Ussa was portrayed?  Does she still have family left?”

Tred hesitated.  Had she not understood that Ussa had not exactly existed . . . ?  He thought they’d just established that.

But the translation had hitched.  There seemed to be some sort of difficulty in imparting exactly what she had meant – perhaps in her own kind’s form of family there was a sense in it.

“If they were upset, they would have to talk to Klezul Hoshe about that,” he finally said.  “But I think he often has controversial opinions that upset people.  I think he’s said that’s just how art is.”

Jophiel’s sensors turned away, which he took as her being lost in thought.

“Thank you for this evening, Tred,” she said.

He felt warmth growing in his chest.  “You’re very welcome, Ambassador.”

“There you go being formal again!”  She laughed, and he laughed as well.

“I know it’s past the time when you normally sleep,” Jophiel said.  “So you go on and do that.”

“Are you sure?  What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to take your wonderful little drone and look around the ship more!” she said.  “But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.  You sleep!”

Tred hesitated, but felt like she was not just being kind, but dismissing him in a way.

“Have a nice night,” he told her.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the dismissal, but . . .

It had been a really nice night.

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