I would have gone alone, but for a couple of reasons. One, getting attacked by overzealous heroes or ambitious villains would have been detrimental to the purpose of this mission. Two, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Just vague recollections, informed by half-remembered rites and ancient traditions.

So I had an entourage. The gentle-faced man with the ugly sweater, all smiles and helpfulness. I had the vague sense that he was... talented? Respectably good at something. Although from his appearance, I couldn't begin to imagine at what. The woman with the aura of sharp smells… Happy Pill. Shopping for ingredients, complex chemicals, dumped into a basket, skipping from aisle to aisle. The faint whine of an electric wheelchair, straining to carry the bulk of the person steering it with short, stumpy arms. Missing legs. Memories. Pizza.

A thought had me lean down to Pizza, who was setting our pace. "Are you alright?"

He smiled up at me, a faint sheen of sweat on his bald head, but not smelling of stress or fear. Just the jacket and scarf piled on him, no longer needed after the sudden warmth once we had gone inside the grocery store. I delicately plucked the fuzzy wool from where it was looped around his neck with a claw, placing it on the basket sweater-man helpfully held out for me. Pizza's voice was calm, reassuring. "I am fine, my friend. It is nice to not be stared at, for once. Thank you."

I nodded, noting that, yes, most of the concerned looks—mixed disgust and awe—were aimed at me. I ignored them, as always, but was vaguely glad that me drawing attention served a purpose this time. I was the monster, not him.

"Do you know what you want to make?" he asked, reminding me of why we were here.

"I have no idea," I admitted. For some reason an image crossed my mind. Moonlight. Two things sharing a plate. A song. A kiss. "Spaghetti?"

Pizza nodded, approving. Sweater-man chimed in, being helpful, "Is a good easy meal to makes. I can finds a nice sauce for you, writes it down." He grinned easily, showing teeth without malice. "I am sure she will likes it."

I shrugged, an uncomfortable feeling of being distinctly out of my element bubbling up from inside me. An uncommon sensation, usually dealt with by fighting, or… delegating. Leaving it to others. But this was something I should be involved in, right? That was… part of the rite. The ritual. The date.

Sniffing at the air, I was drawn—the rest of the group turning to follow, strangers clearing a path wordlessly—to a section full of fragrant, colorful flowers. Dead, but pretty, until they rotted. Would she prefer them rotted? I wasn't sure. I had conflicting impulses, there. But these had interesting patterns in ultraviolet, extra swirls on top of the soft pinks and yellows, the pale white streaked with subtle colors. They had been… someone's favorite. Sweater-man carefully pulled the ones I was staring at out from the buckets of water, placed them in a bag, nodded approvingly. "Stargazer lilies. Very pretty. I'll puts them in a vase for you whens we get back. You can puts it on the table."

I looked at him for a moment. Table? Right. Those things people sat at. With... chairs.

The uncomfortable feeling grew. So much lost, left behind, discarded.

Pizza reached over and patted my flank with a stubby hand. "You will be fine. She likes you."

I thought of the gifts she had given me. The horn that didn't grow back. The lips I could speak with, without the tablet's soft, irritating voice in place of mine. The view from the clouds, soaring above the highway. The urges, long forgotten, tucked away beneath intertwined cilia, waiting to be rediscovered, shared.

I thought too of the stinging, burning awareness that it was temporary. The certainty, oft-forgotten but never eliminated this, too, shall pass. I would adapt, my power would strip away everything that I was—whether it was important to me or not—to prepare me for the next challenge, bigger and badder, just over the horizon.

I knew she was afraid, too. Smelled it on her whenever talk of the future came up. Every time she used her power on me, changed me. We were on a ticking clock, a countdown to being nothing more than a memory, and it was a fight I couldn't win with claws and lightning.

And so, like all things that frightened me, I would charge at it headfirst, screaming and defiant.

"A movie. That's a date thing, right? And… dessert."

Sweater-man smiled, happy for me. Pizza smiled as well, but a little more sadly, having known me the longest. Happy Pill smiled in confusion, having been stopped and escorted to us by security for attempting to dismantle the smoothie machine.

I stared at Lipstick for a long time. She fidgeted under the weight of my gaze, plucking at the fabric of her… dress. Her hair had been done up, vertical, stiff and freshly re-colored, and the makeup around her eyes was more elaborate. Her lips were, as always, black, but they had a bit more gloss to them than usual, beneath the tiny hoops of metal. Her tongue flicked out briefly, nervous. Forked, like mine. She smelled of flowers—not the ones resting on the table—and the sharp tang of fear. She still wore her boots, sturdy, worn leather laced to the knees, with a slight bulge for the tracking bracelet. The familiarity helped.

"You look..." I stumbled around for the right word. "Nice."

"Thanks. You do… too…"

I'd yet to find a tailor who could clothe me in anything that lasted for more than a few minutes, but sweater-man had lent me a tie, wrapping it around my neck in a stubby little knot, the ends dangling below. Her neck was adorned with a skintight leather strap, which I was a little jealous of; stylish, simple, and she had made it herself. From a raccoon, judging by the faint traces of scent on it. It suited her. It was joined by the necklace she made from me, the outlines of its shape barely visible beneath her sweater. She never took it off. I liked that.

For the rest of me, the best I could do was to lay my cilia down in some semblance of neatness. That, and I had Happy Pill help me polish my horns and claws until they were smooth.

I could not remember ever feeling so awkward.

At some wordless signal, we moved to the small table with the flowers on it. There was also a candle, protected from the wind by a little glass cup, and two plates of fresh spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs. One chair, which she sat in, taking a second to adjust the dress first. Black, with dark grey spots, ending just above her knees. It left her shoulders bare, but a wool sweater covered her down to her wrists, and patterned leggings kept her legs warm. They must be new as well; I'd ended up tearing her other pairs.

We sat in silence on top of my trailer for a while. Her sitting in the chair, me crouched beside the table, trying not to make a mess of the spaghetti with my middle hands; it felt like it had been a long time since I'd eaten actual food, much less used utensils, and my body configuration had changed since then. It was all new to me, like so much else.

Around the plain white metal of my trailer beneath us, the world was split into thirds. On one side, the camp—all the other trailers and trucks and a half-assembled stage, lit up a short distance away. A roving city, a traveling circus, its migration paused. Opposite that were empty fields, dotted with wheat rolled up into cylinders, criss-crossed by roads, divided by a highway a mile distant. And above us the sky, empty of clouds in a rare night of clarity, stars twinkling. Finally, at the center of it all, us. Together around a table. On a date. Which was not going well.

Conversation, when it began, was slow and stilted. She complimented the food. I said sweater-man had helped.

I complimented her dress. She smiled, but shifted a little uncomfortably. Said Duct Tape had lent it to her. It didn't seem familiar, but I couldn't remember Duct Tape ever wearing anything but black crew clothes, so I just nodded.

She asked me, sounding a little more confident, about some of the bands she said I'd toured with. She quoted magazine articles, internet videos, rumors that had apparently gone around. Asked what it was like meeting famous people. I couldn't speak to most of it, didn't recognize most of the names. Jon Stewart was a sweetheart; I could say that with some surety. A bit frustrated, a bit disappointed, she pulled out her phone and showed me pictures she had saved, a large collection years old, judging by the way I looked in some of them. Smaller, no fur, eyes that were eyes. I stood with people at press events, attended award ceremonies, even shared a stage with them, but... only one person in ten seemed even vaguely familiar.

"You did an entire collab album with Bad Canary, "The Jailbird Sings," super experimental… nothing?" I could only shrug at the image of me sharing a microphone with a woman with yellow feathers in her hair.

It was disheartening to both of us. This whole… talking, thing. It hadn't been a big part of our... interactions.

I felt stupid. There was a pit in my stomach that had nothing to do with the spaghetti rapidly dissolving into whatever my power did with things I ate, and it wouldn't go away. Eventually I slumped over in defeat as she searched through her phone for more pictures, sprawled myself half over the edge of the trailer, struggling with the unfamiliar taste of surrender. Half a dozen birds flew off, cawing angrily at me for disturbing their perch.

Lipstick got out of her chair, crouched on her heels beside my head. One hand caressed my incomplete horn, fingers tracing the outline of the remnant of our first meeting. The other hand clutched its match, the piece of me hanging around her neck. After an interminable pause, she broke the silence.

"Why?"

I lifted my head slightly so one eye was aimed her way. "Why what?"

"I'm not saying it wasn't… sweet, but this whole thing..." She shook her head. "It's not us. This isn't who we are. This is what normal people tell us we should be. It's stupid."

I dropped my head again, horn hitting metal with a hollow thunk, and she hastily added, "No! You're not stupid. Society is stupid." She took a deep breath, let it out in an explosive sigh. "We're monsters. The rules don't apply to us. We should do what we want, because we can, and who the fuck is going to tell us no?"

It felt like there were some flaws in that argument, but in that moment I just wanted to believe. I reached for her, big arm and little arm pulling her into an embrace, and she went along with it, burying her head into my chest. It smushed her mohawks a little, but neither of us cared.

Then I rolled backwards off the edge of the trailer, eliciting a surprised yelp from her as I corrected mid-fall to land on two legs, two arms, my middle ones holding her tight against me off the ground. She punched me weakly in the ribs in retaliation, but that just made me chuff in amusement. She didn't even use her power.

"Well then," I said, ambling to the back of the trailer, to the pillows within. I tore off my tie, thin fabric snapping. Then her dress, running one claw delicately down the back, peeling her out of it even as I carried her beneath me, much to her appreciation. Shudders and small gasps, bringing warmth to both of us. "What should we do, us monsters, to show we care for each other?"

Her eyes sparkled in the reflected red glow of my eyes, teeth white in the darkness as she smiled. "I have a few ideas."