Rise of the Feathered Nobility in the Hittite Empire

Upon my arrival in Hattusa, I was immediately struck by the flamboyant spectacle of feathers adorning virtually every noble head and shoulder, like some grand avian conspiracy to rebrand humanity. This is a timeline where the notion of prestige has taken a flamboyant flight; a veritable avian revolution has taken hold. Here, a mere sideways glance at societal standing is enough to suspect one has walked in on a colorful avian masquerade ball.

It seems that somewhere in their artistic journey, the Hittites got talent—bird talent, to be precise. They've taken to fixing extravagant plumes to their persons with the ardor of an artist splattering paint onto a fresh canvas. The nobles, I learned, consider themselves not fully dressed without an array of feathers intricately woven into their attire. Each feather signifies something of importance, from lineage to military achievement, making my own ordinary tunic feel notably bare.

Strolling through the animated marketplaces, I've tried to blend in, but the friendly local vendors insist on translating with gusto the significance of each feather within their reach. The coveted "Celestial Sunrise" feathers, I'm told, are tantamount to securing a golden ticket into the Hittite upper crust. Given the price—rumor has it the worth of two oxen or a young camel—I'm left wondering if these nobles have perhaps inflated the economy with their avian ardor. The locals have adopted a strange barter system involving rare plumes, demonstrating yet again that currency in feathers has a flighty charm, if not a long-term economic wisdom.

In the courts, an intriguing custom awaited—a bravura show of military pageantry, where warriors present themselves with what can only be described as a fashion line-up from an alternate avian dimension. Decked out in spiraling feathers, they appear almost mystical, hovering somewhere between formidable and ridiculous. The chariot drivers still wear their battle expressions, though now juxtaposed with a trailing array of tail feathers. Were it not for their expertly wielded spears, one might almost say they resembled more runway models than warriors.

Remarkably, this quirky feather fetish extends to bureaucratic life, where power is measured quite literally by the plumage of one's headdress. Meetings at the council are prefaced with the anointing of feathers—it's a spectacle not unlike the swapping of wigs in courtroom dramas. Only the grandest and most iridescent feathers are reserved for the most crucial offices, creating a hierarchy of chromatic splendor, even if the notion of authority therein remains feather light.

It's hard to find a parallel in our timeline—perhaps the Rococo powdered wigs come closest in sheer eccentricity. What this approach does to governance and morale is a subject for another day, although I suspect a few feathers might ruffle in a sudden gust of political upheaval.

Today, I had the peculiar pleasure of dining with a scribe, young and eager to impress, perched at the very bottom of the status ladder on account of his drab feather collection. He shared an eye-opening nugget of wisdom: life is ephemeral, not unlike the plumage of a bird. Yet here, despite the potential for existential pondering, the lowliest of scribes simply dreams of a resplendent bird crest—a symbol that, in another universe, he should perhaps aspire less for feathers and more for professionalism.