Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

“Have you talked to Sam yet?” Kerilas asks, as I take a break from playing that evening. Jalese’s brought me another of these creamy, fruity drinks that I can only describe as a smoothie of some sort, but it’s about a micron away from being a milk shake too. The flavours are all of Jeodin though, with cinnamon and something else I can’t place at all but which I suspect is making me a little less inhibited.

“Sam? What about?”

“Oh come off it, Tani, what do you think?” He leans close. “Do you want me to sit here and talk aloud about how you’re not really a girl?” he asks me in English.

I give him a nasty look. “I think people would believe their eyes over the word of a dark elf, don’t you?” I fire back, cattily. I can see that one hit home. After all, I only need to grow an exhibitionist streak for about three seconds and no-one in the area is going to have any doubt as to my sex. “Keri, we’re not even human any more. How come we’re not talking about that? Why is whether I’m a boy or a girl so important?”

“Because it is, and you know it,” he says quietly. “You’re using that to avoid the subject.”

I sigh and slouch back in my chair and pick at a few notes on the box-harp. “I don’t know what there is to talk about,” I say. My voice sounds petulant even to my own ears. “It happened. I didn’t ask for it. I just thought it would be best if I got on with it, you know?”

“Just like that? You thought you’d get on with it just like that?”

“Well…” I shrug. “What else am I going to do? We’ve got to adapt, haven’t we?”

He gives me a long, long look. Aloud he only says, “Well, you’re ‘adapting’ an awful lot better than Sami is, that’s all I can say.” He continues that Look. “Listen, all I’m saying is, Sam’s having a hard time with this, and right now you’ve got more in common with him than anyone else on this planet. I’m sorry if this breaks in on all the fun you’re having ‘adapting’—”

“Oh fuck off.”

“Don’t be so immature. It’s not very elvish, is it?”

In answer I pick out the tune of the first line of ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog’ on the box-harp. He grins and gives me a shove I probably deserve. I’m smiling too.

“I just want you to talk to him,” he says, more emolliently.

I look away and stare at the flickering light in the stove window. And, dammit, I’ve got Hound Dog stuck in my head. “I wouldn’t know what to say,” I say.

“Then listen. That’s the point anyway.”

“I s’pose. Everything’s so busy at the moment—”

“You’re not too busy for this. He’s still your friend, isn’t he?”

I look back at Kerilas. Finally I nod.