Day 3 - Mirror or Masquerade
@talesofarcadiafemslashweek
Aja/Shannon (Shanaja)
wordcount: ~2k
Rated: PG
(Quick note: the reason Aja uses she/her for herself and he/him for Krel is an artifact of imperfect translation. Akiridians don’t have genders as we’d understand them, so their use of gendered terms like ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ really just reflect that the Akiridian language has more than one word for ‘sibling,’ and that Aja and Krel use different terms for each other.)
Aja washed her hands slowly at the row of sinks in the school bathroom - she was not eager to get back to English class. It was, by far, her least favorite class. There were so many assumptions made, so many fundamentals her classmates had spent years learning, comparisons being made to other books that everyone else had already read.
She was forever thankful that she and her brother had Universal Understanding, that the technology had been acquired by her people in trade with the Babelpisces several generations ago. It was essential for interplanetary negotiations, and, now, to analyze eyeball symbolism in The Great Gatsby.
Aja turned off the sink, taking a moment to examine her features in the mirror. She did not know when she would get used to her fleshy human appearance, but she hoped it would be soon. She poked her nose, moving it from side to side, opened her mouth to look at her teeth. She was a girl now, apparently, whatever that meant.
All she knew for certain was that it meant using certain pronouns and not others. Akiridian pronouns did not, so far as Aja could tell, correspond to gender, but she was still a little unclear on what ‘gender’ was, and had been racking her brains - a funny human idiom - to see if she could think of an Akiridian equivalent.
On Akiridian-5, a person’s pronouns told you a lot about them - their approximate age, social rank, and sometimes even area of expertise. They had over a dozen third-person pronouns, but it was easy to know which one to use because they also had a over a dozen corresponding first-person pronouns. In Arcadia, everyone was “I” this and “I” that - it was honestly one of the most startling things about being human, how the same everyone seemed.
Aja and Krel used the royal pronouns for first born and second born, respectively. Krel had once confided in her that he had toyed with the idea of using an engineer’s pronouns, but ultimately his sense of duty to the crown won out. That, and their parents would have thrown a fit if they had known.
Aja had not told Krel that she sometimes disguised herself and used artisan pronouns when she went to the skeltag pits to watch the fights.
(Neither of them had quite gotten the hang of the new king- and queen-in-waiting pronouns they should now be using.)
Mother had implied that gender was a social rank modifier when she said that Aja would be overlooked if she were a girl - Aja had, at the time, assumed it meant something like the suzinx, those who moved unobtrusively through the palace - but Aja was unsure how true that was since Krel was less girl than she was but he was more ignored. (Possibly Aja was just exceptionally bad at blending in and lying low.)
Aja had yet to reliably identify who was and was not a girl in daily life. At first she thought being a girl had to do with clothes, but she had given up on that idea after it turned up so many false negatives. It also had nothing to do with eye color or hair color or how much time they spent talking or whether they liked burritos.
Being a girl seemed to be positively correlated with hair length quite strongly, so that was her current working theory: the longer someone’s hair follicles, the more girl they were.
Aja had the longest hair of anyone she knew; she supposed that made her a full girl. Mary was a close second - 90% girl, maybe? Her best guess was that Krel was at least half girl, about the same as Claire. Aja had been momentarily stymied by the fact that Claire was apparently considered a girl while Krel was not, since both had shoulder-length hair, but then she realized that all the clips Claire added to her hair probably increased her girl quotient.
Aja was startled from her introspection by the sound of rushing water behind her. Shannon stepped out of a stall and blinked at Aja, offering her a tentative grin, before she moved over to the row of sinks.
(Splitting hairs into clumps seemed to have a similar effect as adding clips, because Shannon’s hair looked like it might be shorter than Krel’s but she was also a girl.)
She looked on in curiosity as the other girl washed her hands - Aja quickly realized that she’d forgotten to use any soap, and hurried to correct her mistake, washing her hands a second time while carefully imitating the human’s motions.
“Oh!” A flash of color had caught her eye, and she abandoned her own sink to try to get a better look, reaching over with the intent to pull Shannon’s hands from the faucet for closer inspection - but the girl eeped and jerked her hands away. “Sorry, sorry.” Aja held up her dripping hands in apology. “I was just admiring your colorful fingers. How did you do that?”
“You mean my nail polish?” She finished rinsing the suds off, revealing dark blue fingernails that seemed to shimmer in the light. For some reason her face got very red, like Aja had seen on some humans in gym class when they breathed in and out more than usual. “You, you like it? um.”
“Yes, very much! Very lively!”
“Oh, thanks.” Her face got even redder, and Aja started to grow concerned. “Um, I could - I could do your nails for you sometime? If you want?”
Any color she added to her nails would not survive her transition back to her Akiridian form, but as she thought about what ‘doing her nails’ would entail, going to Shannon’s house and sitting down together, spending time with her, she decided that it didn’t matter to her that the finished product would not last longer than a day.
“Yes, I would like that very much. Thank you! And oh! Maybe you could help me with a problem I have been having. Could you help me understand what a girl is, please?”
“You - you what?” Shannon sputtered, wide-eyed.
“We don’t have girls on Ak - on Cantaloupia. Being here is very confusing. I would like to learn to be a girl, please.”
“Oh, I thought you meant - nevermind what I thought.” Shannon looked at her for a very long time, the red color slowly fading from her face. Aja was not sure what she was looking for, though she had an inkling.
She tried to reassure her, “I know my hair is tucked up right now, but I promise you, it is definitely long enough to be a girl.”
Shannon’s expression seemed to… crumple, and she bit her lip. “Are you just… wanting to learn performative femininity because it’s expected of you?”
“Per-for-wha?”
“Sorry, my mom’s a therapist. I meant, do you just want to learn to act more like a girl because you think it’s expected of you?”
“I am supposed to do what people expect of me, it is part of being in hiding and remaining unnoticed. Ah, I mean…” Aja blanked on trying to explain away her slip-up, decided to ignore it and hope Shannon didn’t notice. “Yes, I suppose it is a little bit what you said. Mostly, I think I am just curious. I have been watching the television and there are many girl things I would like to try - like your fingernails! They are so colorful and lively! I would like to do that.”
Shannon still did not look satisfied with her answer. “You can do girl things without being a girl, that’s okay too.”
Not be a girl? Was that an option? “But I am a girl.”
“But you just told me you don’t know what a girl is!”
“Yes? What is yout point?” Aja was a girl now and that was why she needed to know what one was.
“Do you want to be a girl?”
“I… I don’t know. That is why I want to better understand what a girl is.”
Shannon rubbed at her temples. “Okay, okay, I think I understand. You’re exploring your gender identity, and you want to see if being a girl is right for you; is that about the gist of it?”
Aja did not particularly understand the question, but she thought she could guess at the answer. “Yes?”
Shannon nodded. “Okay, alright. Yeah, I’d be willing to coach you in girl stuff, hang out and show you the ropes. But, um,” she wrung her hands together, “while we’re being open and honest, I want to say that… I’vegotacrushonyou.” She immediately buried her face in her hands. “Argh, why did I say that?! Stupid Shannon, stupid.”
“Oh. Was it mistake to say that?” Aja cocked her head to one side.
Shannon peeked at her between fingers still firmly affixed to her face. “Do you…” she began hesitantly, “know what a crush is?”
Aja waggled her hand back and forth in a so-so gesture she learned from watching her classmates. “I have been observing hu-uh-hyour culture and I know it does not mean flattening someone with a zorkgast. I think,” Aja picked her words with careful deliberation, “it means the same as like-like, yes?”
“Yes.” Shannon removed her hands from her face, and drew herself up to her full height. “Aja. I think you’re cool and amazing, and I like-like you. Do you want to go out with me?”
Aja gave that some thought. She knew what ‘going out’ meant, and dating - she was a princess, she knew all about courtship. She had never expected to have the freedom to do so without political consideration, and it gave her a heady rush.
But it would be selfish to say yes just because she could, just because she wanted to learn what this girl could teach her, just because it sounded like an adventure. She could see that that would not be fair to Shannon.
And yet. Shannon was nice. She told funny jokes, and she carried extra pencils to loan to anyone who needed one. She read a lot of books that looked a lot more interesting than the books they had to read for class. Thinking about it, Aja realized she would like to spend more time with her, find adventure together, learn more about her and hopefully more about herself.
“Shannon,” Aja began, uncertain if she would be able to find the right words. “I like you too. I do not know if I like-like you - there is a lot I do not know, yet - but I am willing to find out, if that is okay.”
Shannon smiled softly at her, “Yeah, yeah that’s okay.” Suddenly she squealed loudly, “EEEEEEIH! Sorry, sorry, I’m just so excited, I couldn’t help it!” She glanced at the door, shifting her weight back and forth. “We’ll talk more later, yeah? We should really be getting back to class - Ms Janeth hates long bathroom breaks, she’s gonna give me the stink eye.”
“I do not think Mr. Clemens is all that fond of them either,” Aja admitted ruefully.
“Here,” Shannon pulled Aja’s arm towards her and fished a blue pen out of her pocket with her other hand. She wrote a string of numbers on the inside of her forearm. “Call me, yeah?” Her face had gone that funny red color again.
“Yes, I will!”
Aja felt lighter than she could remember feeling, the prospect of figuring her life out seemed less like a weight she had to bear and more like journey she could share, and she skipped her way back to class.
(Mr. Clemens was very unhappy with the length of time she had spent in the bathroom, and said she would not get any more bathroom breaks in class for the rest of the week, but Aja did not particularly care)
