by R. Cooper
“The Ti’irana Uprising was during the reign of a Shyril,” Taji recalled. “That was led by the Tir?”
“I do not…history has never been of special interest to me.” Talfa tossed their head, almost arrogantly. “But the Tir have had many emperors.”
“But Tir Quida tied with Koel Phyta, which means their children will officially be part of the Koel, not Tir.” Taji mused for a moment. At least on paper, or so the expression went. “The family name that comes from a marriage—um, this sort of contract—is supposed to go to the more advantageous and higher ranking half of the match.”
“I do not understand.” Talfa turned and looked down at Taji. “You are very strange. Their children will be Koel, with Tir as the second family name.”
“Would the emperor have considered Tir Quida a good match? Since the Tir have had many emperors?” Taji patted the air to show he meant no harm with the questions. “I’m not saying he considered her. I mean this as an exercise to help me figure out what is going on.”
“And what is going on is marriage, as you called it?” Talfa sounded out the Anglisky word. “I do not think Quida would have had him.” Talfa glanced to the two Guards. “For reasons of her own.”
Taji nodded thoughtfully. “But Olea Rinnah is not tied to anyone, and she does not have a shehzha or a…” Taji considered several words but rejected them, “lover that I know of. So people must wonder.”
“She?” Talfa repeated Taji’s word choice in a way that meant Taji must have used the incorrect she, but didn’t correct it. “Rinnah will choose.” Talfa looked down. “May she choose well.”
Taji didn’t know what to make of that answer. But he also glanced to the Guards, sure they could hear every word.
“How about you?” he asked, a little too jovial, and sighed at himself. “Not enjoying the party? I am not good at mingling either.” Talfa’s blank look made him continue. “Forced socializing,” he explained.
Countless people offered Larin cups of midye. They were all rejected. Nikay did not make that offer, as if he knew Larin didn’t want any. Maybe the others knew, but had to try.
“Another ritual,” Taji sighed. “Another chance to put on a show and say something I do not understand. Except, I suppose, that everything here belongs to Larin, so really I am watching people offer him wine that he provided for them. Do they understand the humor in that or is that not the point?”
“You are very strange,” Talfa repeated. “Since we are asking questions…may I ask, did they call you shehzha before the hurat tried for you, or only after?”
Not caring for ‘the hurat,’ Taji waited before answering. “Before,” he said shortly. It was technically correct.
“Because you speak out of turn?” Talfa’s voice grew soft. “Or often say the wrong thing?”
Taji started to reply, then paused to give Talfa a more thorough look. “And a few other reasons,” he said carefully.
If Talfa was subtly being rude about Taji’s people skills, it didn’t show in their voice. “Do you enjoy it?” Talfa gave a small jump after asking the question. “Obviously, you enjoy it.” Talfa moved their hands, possibly flustered. “Apologies. I meant to say, the rest of what shehzha entails. You are allowed to keep active, to be here now. You must like that.”
“You saw me this morning,” Taji reminded them. “Nothing can make me stop working.” He shrugged. “Or shut up.”
“I am willing to guess your hurat knows how to silence you,” Talfa commented slyly.
Taji absolutely did not blush. He frowned instead. “His name is Trenne.”
“Trenne,” Talfa echoed him, but in a whisper, as if giving Trenne a name was scandalous. Perhaps it was, since Talfa leaned down a moment later. “I also often say the wrong thing, but I will say his name if you prefer it.”
It occurred to Taji that Talfa might be a true shehzha, or was trying to tell him that they were, since ‘saying the wrong thing’ seemed to be one of the criteria. But since Talfa hadn’t volunteered anything direct, Taji bit his tongue.
“Did you see the temple with Olea Rinnah?” he asked instead.
Talfa lowered one ear and looked at Taji sideways. The effect was derisive. “The temple visit was for you.”
Which Mos had also implied. So Rinnah had wanted to either impress Taji or impress something upon him, and Taji had not cooperated because he’d forgotten he was supposed to be a diplomat and not a student. Tsomyal would not have wanted that.
Still, Taji wouldn’t have traded it for his nap with Trenne, and shivered warmly at the memory.
Ignoring Talfa’s knowing glance, Taji cleared his throat and moved on. “Eriat must have been pissed—irritated—to be forced into a tour and then to have to stand in the rain.”
“It did not rain much,” was Talfa’s first response. Taji blinked at the mild answer. Then Talfa mimicked his shrug in a way that Taji had to describe to someone later, Nadir or maybe Nev. “I did not mind. It was more interesting than religion and Olea history.”
He didn’t think Talfa was lying. Talfa had laughed out there in the mist and the rain. Nonetheless, there had to be an art to scratching beneath the surface without acknowledging the surface existed.
“Most people are bored when I start talking about language. I hope it did not bother you,” Taji tried again. “They might have just been weather marks on rocks.”
“Some of the marks seemed very uniform,” Talfa commented calmly, taking Taji by complete surprise. He hadn’t thought Talfa had given the ruins a lot of attention. Then Talfa gave a start to match Taji’s and followed it with quick look toward the two watching Guards. “If the first Sha left those stones there, they had reason to. To send a message, you said.” Talfa inhaled sharply and bent their head to be closer to Taji. “Tell me, if you please, did you talk this way before you gave to the hu—to Trenne?” Talfa’s ears were pressed flat to their skull. Their voice was hushed. “Freely? With all your ideas? Even if they might be wrong?”
“Yes?” Taji didn’t understand the question. “Usually no one listened.”
Both of Talfa’s ears flew up to their normal position. Talfa made a flicking, dismissive gesture with one hand. “You were sent here? Your I-P-T-C chose you.” Setting aside how a society with no acronyms had to consistently pause to overpronounce I.P.T.C., as well as the reality of how and why Taji had been chosen to come to Mirsa, the remark was oddly sweet; Talfa had more faith in Taji’s intelligence than most of the team probably did.
Talfa smiled at him, and Taji realized it was because he was smiling.
“Even if you are not right about the rocks, you are very smart to know what you know—and your soldiers listened to you. They respect you, even as a shehzha.”
“Well, IPTC—er, the I.P.T.C. does not really have or understand shehzha—” Taji stopped when Talfa’s wistful tone hit him. “You are not…thinking of joining the I.P.T.C., are you?”
Talfa’s laugh was too loud and quickly stifled. Then Talfa looked away. “I am Koel Talfa.”
Taji couldn’t stop the question this time. “But you are shehzha?”
He knew to watch the ears for the truth, even with Talfa who revealed too much already. Talfa’s ears twitched twice, flicking down before Talfa forcefully raised them. Talfa kept their face averted. “I have no doubt I will be.”
The silence and stillness from Talfa was unsettling. Taji found himself looking to the Guards for explanation before remembering they wouldn’t give him one. He stared at the revelers, most of them clustered around either Larin or Rinnah. Tsomyal had arrived, Eriat was with them. Taji knew he should go to the ambassador.
He didn’t move. “Do you not want to be shehzha?” he asked carefully, barely whispering. “It is an honor? Yes?”
Talfa met Taji’s eyes, then shot a glance to others—to Larin. “It is said to be. You seemed honored this morning, and now.”
Wisely avoiding the Imperial Guards, Taji turned toward Talfa.
Most shehzha wanted t
o be shehzha, or agreed to do it for the sake of children. It was a state that could be reached even in a cold, practical arrangement, but was stronger if there was an emotional connection or—and—if the shehzha was already someone prone to losing control, as Shavians defined it.
“You speak out of turn and sometimes say the wrong thing, but you are not shehzha,” Taji reasoned out loud. Talfa continued to regard him steadily, remarkably composed for someone assumed to be incapable of it. Taji frowned. “That should not matter.”
Shavian silences said a lot.
“It does matter?” Taji pressed, still frowning.
Talfa gave another imitation of a human shrug, which meant Talfa had picked up some of the meaning from watching Taji.
“Apologies for asking,” Talfa spoke softly, “but it is so rare to speak with a shehzha when they are near or at the height of their happiness. You are happy? I am not only wishing you are?”
Something clicked in Taji’s mind. “Are people insisting you must be shehzha?” He barely remembered to keep his voice down. “Because you put your foot in your mouth? That is an expression that means speaking clumsily. I do not understand it either.”
Talfa swung their gaze out toward the crowd. “It would be an honor to be shehzha.”
“Yeah,” Taji scoffed the way Nadir would have, with easy contempt. “But one you do not care for.” He gestured at himself. “Look, so, I limp, right? I have a fuc—messed up leg and no one likes to talk about it. Sometimes it hurts to walk.”
“Like this morning.” Talfa studied the lower half of Taji’s body, momentarily distracted.
Taji nodded. “And Trenne could have carried me. He did not. You know why?” he demanded of Talfa’s wide-eyed stare. “Because I told him to never do that unless I asked. It is not an honor if you do not want it.”
“He lets you walk while in pain in order to honor you?” Talfa asked slowly.
Though it sounded strange phrased that way, Taji nodded again. “It is what I want.”
Talfa reached up to scratch an ear. “He is being very respectful to your human beliefs,” they finally decreed, somehow praising Trenne and insulting Taji simultaneously. “May I ask something else?”
Fuck, but Taji wanted a drink. He hadn’t expected a conversation quite this honest. “Go ahead. I do not have to answer.”
Talfa’s smile showed teeth, blunt in front and then two pairs of fangs on both top and bottom. Shavians were omnivores.
“A stubborn shehzha.” Talfa had dark, sharp eyes, the lids painted with sparkling shimmer. “I do not think I would like a stubborn shehzha, but how interesting to speak to one. Tell me, I spoke of you as a rhe, because Rinnah’s Inri assured me humans only use a few indicators. You will say she, he, it, they, or sometimes others,” Talfa pronounced each pronoun in exaggerated Anglisky. “This is correct?”
“Yes.” Maybe not drinking the offered midye was the best choice. Taji was awkward and unprepared, which he hated. “In the same vein…B’lyad. That is, um, you are not wearing a knife that I can see. But no one calls you she, which means female in Anglisky. The word used for you in my translation device is either heh, meaning ‘that one’ or tahl which is closest to ‘they.’ ‘They’ is often used in Anglisky. But it is a sort of a filler word until we know the proper word. Or if the individual sentient prefers its use. Or if the right word is unpronounceable for us, as it is with Ambassador Tsomyal. It means unknown gender or multiple genders or fluid genders. Or none at all.”
Talfa narrowed their eyes to squint down at Taji. “It is not only a matter of knives,” they murmured, as if Taji’s data device wasn’t full of clearly incorrect information that said exactly that. “Your soldiers wear knives.” Taji considered explaining IPTC regs and that humans from different places on different planets had completely different gender systems, but didn’t get a chance to try. Talfa added, out of nowhere, “This explains why your tales of honor are confusing.” Taji blinked and tapped his translator in case it had malfunctioned. But no other definitions for tales of honor were forthcoming. Talfa pressed on. “There are those born with stem or petal or the flower whole. Most whole. But to you that is not so? You must be confused. I will not ask anything more intimate.”
Taji’s translator beeped in almost stymied confusion at those words being used right then. Taji abruptly realized what those words might mean, if Talfa was using slang or euphemisms, or, as was likely for ‘Asha, words that came from visual representation of reproductive parts in their old writing.
Taji shut his mouth in a hurry.
“Everyone has a knife. To show it is to say you…” Talfa faltered. “Humans have external genitalia?”
Taji nodded impatiently, still listening. “Sometimes. So the knife is to show you have that?”
“Yes. If you want to show that.” Talfa looked vaguely confused, which for a Shavian meant he was probably utterly lost. “To not show is to indicate you do not, or that you choose not to say, or that you choose not to say that day. But all that is irrelevant,” Talfa continued, oblivious. “Your Trenne….” Talfa’s voice was briefly rough. “He would wear a knife and mean it. He also does not even adorn his uniform with the colors the others do. That is rhe. The same as Larin. Has he told you his choice?”
Rhe and rheh, to Taji’s translator, both meant he. Taji had heard both terms before, most often overheard in whispers about the IPTC soldiers, including Lin and Nev.
“So the knife, in some way, indicates body parts.” IPTC soldiers must have puzzled many a Shavian. “Humans generally do not advertise our, uh, genitalia through accessories. In that way.” He cleared his throat. “What is the difference between rhe and rheh?” The sound was nearly identical, with rhe ending in an eh sound more like the one in Trenne’s name.
“Rhe, like the pale one who obeys your hu—Trenne.” Talfa nodded. “Your Trenne as well. No decorations, no regard for softness in clothes or manner. No, that is not true. Your Trenne has some softness. His hair. How strange. So perhaps Trenne prefers rheh. Tell me, out of his human costume, does he dress differently?”
“I have never seen him out of uniform. Except for…” Taji let that fade away before he combusted. “So the pronouns are not aligned masculine or feminine. What about others? There have to be more than ‘no softness’ and ‘some softness.’”
“I do not understand you.” Nonetheless, Talfa obliged him. He gestured to Nikay who downed a cup of midye with reckless abandon that made Taji stare. He had long hair gathered in two places down his back, and a razar, a flying animal Taji had only seen in murals, looked to be painted, not sewn, onto his soria. He had a knife in his belt. “Seh,” Talfa said.
He or she, Taji’s translator insisted. Taji tried to forgive his lazy predecessors, especially the murdered ones.
“Even softer?” Taji guessed. “And with a knife, so from context it’s softer he and not softer she.” He studied Nikay, wondering what made him different from Trenne. “He likes nice clothes and pretty things? He’s probably never used that knife?”
“Nikay would like you to know that he is softer.” Talfa hummed, which told Taji nothing except that Talfa was possibly imagining what Nikay was like in bed—or knew already.
“Does that mean something about how he has sex?” Taji was somewhere between delighted at this and embarrassed over whatever he might have unwittingly been telling Shavians about his sex life.
“No.” Talfa shut him down there, with a tone that implied Taji was absurd. “It is how he dresses.”
Taji leaned in and looked up. “Are you saying your genders are about fashion choices?”
“Are yours?” Talfa stared at him levelly.
“Not…entirely?” Taji finished weakly. “Style and clothing is a part of it, like here. Although, on some planets and in some countries, your presented gender affects how you are treated.”
“How strange.” Talfa scratched an ear again.
“So?” Taji prodded with a nod toward Mos and Rinnah.
“And Gia?” Taji suggested. Gia’s tightly bound hair and lack of shimmer stood out, even among her companions, who were similarly dressed. “Rhe?”
“Cousin Gia,” Talfa’s smile was crooked, “will allow that term, but also often uses heh.”
Rinnah and Nikay in their slightly soft fashion, but nothing close to luxurious or decadent. Mos, who wanted to be pretty. Gia, who did not.
