Taken to Lemora by Elizabeth Stephens

1

Raingar

“I hate these things.”

“Yeffa. We know,” Merquin says without looking at me over the back of her seat. Tana and Reyna are focused on the controls ahead. Bebette, on my right, scrunches her nose at me and, in an act of horror, takes a step closer and gives my shoulder a light pat and a tight squeeze.

I shove her angrily off. “Stop that!”

She just smiles back.

Tana is too busy staring out of the view pane — I know she stopped listening to me rant half a rotation ago — so I redirect my ire onto Reyna instead. “Why I was chosen as representative of our people is utterly beyond me.”

“You’re a clan leader,” she says dryly.

“There are other clan leaders.”

Reyna huffs out of the corner of her mouth, “Yeffa, good point, Raingar. That’s why we’re all here.”

My face heats. I shift, my rough skin feeling uncomfortable under the Lemoran customary tunic I’m wearing. Doesn’t matter that it’s spun of rough catacat silk. It feels like barbed wire. I yank angrily on the collar, stretching it out so that it gapes. A small rebellion. There.

“Nob!” I stomp my right foot and shake my right fist around at all of them and at the translucent kintarr crystal exterior of our ship and at the stars beyond it and mostly at the monstrously gold planet looming closer and closer — that’s the cause of the sickening sensation in my stomach.

“You all chose to be here. You could have sent someone else from my clan. You could have sent Gorman! He would do just fine to represent my clan. I don’t speak for all of them.”

“Funny,” Bebette chirps in her spry, bubbly brogue, “because last I checked, you were the one who got on the ship.”

I open my mouth to rebut Bebette, but I can’t think of anything to thwart her insouciant, giddy logic. I do speak for all of them. I was elected. And that’s why I’m here on this blasted ship and Gorman isn’t. “Pagh!”

We near the dock and I start to pace, squirming in my skin. It doesn’t fit right. Everything is tight and hot and irritated. The skin around the base of my horns itches and I reach up and rub it thoughtfully. Merquin must notice the action because when I look away from the hideous gold planet, I find her watching me thoughtfully for the first time since we left Lemora and my ranting started.

“Are your horns bothering you?” Her brows are drawn together over her wide nostrils.

Like all Lemoran, her appearance is made notable by horns, which begin above her ears and swoop down towards her cheeks, following their path before curving dramatically up and ending a good Lemoran foot’s length above her head in hazardously sharp peaks. She has big hands and blocky fingers. Hair? What hair? She’s got horns and rough textured skin all over. Blocky shoulders that stick up in hard ridges like she’s made of rocks.

With skin that ranges from light brown to darker brown, she actually looks like a rock. We all do. And her size? Well, that doesn’t help negate the rock-appearance any. She’s built like a mountain. I’m a male — the only male clan chief — so I look just like her, only bigger and rockier and without the breasts. And with a larger curl to my horns. And with…uh…extra between my legs. I stand out! And because I’m male, all the other wretched species that have females that they keep tucked away want to speak to me! And I hate it!

“Nevermind about my horns. I’m not getting off the ship. You know all those stupid species with only males for rulers will come and talk to me. They don’t care that I’m the youngest clan chief. I’m not going. I don’t want to talk to them. I’ve already concluded most of the business I needed to from the holoscreens anyway. That’s why they’re there, after all. So that when the dire occasion calls for it, we can broker agreements with off-world idiots.”

“Most agreements,” Tana says, voice rich with impish emphasis that I don’t like. I don’t like it at all.

“Practically all. If I thought I’d have to come to these gatherings, I’d never have let you monsters install those holoscreens in my keep in the first place. You know how much I hate those things. I hate the way the dignitaries’ faces press in on me from the safety of my own ohring keep. Why couldn’t we just keep the old boxes? The ones you could only speak through?”

“It’s more effective not to negotiate with creatures that can see us,” Tana says.

“We do make quite intimidating negotiators.” Bebette’s gaze flicks up to my horns and she sticks her tongue out at me like something about this situation is funny, the blasted wench.

“I don’t negotiate!” I jab, but Reyna talks over me.

“And think about it. If you hadn’t gotten those holoscreens from the Voraxians, you’d have to do all your negotiating from here.”

I gasp in horror. Merquin snorts. Bebette laughs. I shake my head and sputter gruffly, “I still don’t like it. I don’t like any of it!”

Reyna and Tana sigh in unison but Merquin is staring at my horns again as Reyna guides the ship into the enormous golden hangar alongside hundreds of other ships built out of so many different materials I can name and even more that I can’t.

There are ships barely bigger than insect pods and some as big as mountains. A sleek ship catches my eye across the hangar. It’s black exterior is shifting, moving around like it’s got a mind of its own. It creeps me out and I know that it belongs to pirates, which surprises me. They don’t usually attend these things.

“What do you think…” I start, but Merquin’s stare is so intense it rips the thoughts right out of my grasp. “What?” I bark out at her as the ship banks between a monstrosity of a ship that’s all pink and gold and another ship that’s small and bright blue. Both most likely belong to one of the Quadrant One princes or princesses whose planet we’ve just arrived on. They have sooo. many. princes and princesses. And I hate all of them.

She squints at me while, behind her, Tana drops the bridge and the slightly more oxygenated atmosphere on our ship whooshes out into the gold-and-prince-filled world we’ve landed on. I hate gold. I hate princes! I hate whooshing! Pagh!

“You sure you’re feeling alright?” She’s got one eye slightly squintier than the other even though both eyes are locked to my horns.

I realize I’m fingering the base of my right horn, completely unaware. I never touch my horns. What’s wrong with me? I drop my hand and cross my arms over my chest. The depth of my chest makes it difficult, but I struggle against the strain in my shoulders and bark, “My horns are fine! I’m not getting off of the ship.”

The other clan chiefs roll their eyes at me and descend the bridge into the gold hangar in this gold world. Alone, I glance around at the hated clans exiting their ships in smiles and giggles and walking around the circular platforms to reach the various entrances to the golden castle that link directly from this open air dome to the many hallways that lead into the king’s palace. Ironic, considering that the last king died rotations ago. Now, there are only princesses and princes. Loads of them.

My blocky hands twitch against my ribs, where I’ve got them tucked under my arms, as if I’m purposefully restraining them from reaching for the controls. I debate what level of pain and suffering I’d be in if I were to commandeer the ship and fly back to Lemora without the other clan chiefs. A world of pain, I decide, then reconsider, Nob, not a world of pain. Worldsss.

I huff after them down the ramp, shaking my fist as I shout, “Fine. But I’m not going into the castle!”

In the castle, standing at the edge of the ballroom, looking in on the horrifyingly bright colors and the hundreds of kings, queens and chiefs gathered, I growl, “Pagh! I’m not going into the ballroom!”

In the ballroom, I edge backwards, toe-heeling my way farther and farther from the crowd that’s gathered until I bump into horns — Reyna’s. She nudges me forward. “We all know why we’re here,” I hiss under my breath, “and these beings still feel like pressing their ugly faces in on one another and pretending that they care about the answers to the questions that they ask. Pagh! ‘Oh, how are crops farming in Quadrant Eight?’” I say in mock imitation of a Quadrant One prince. “‘Oh, very well? That’s so lovely.’ Nob! It isn’t. Don’t they know that Quadrant Eight farming is impossible! The Oosa only eat synthetic foods!”

As I’m speaking, a contingent of Walreys from Quadrant Five fly close enough to be heard — close enough that I can see myself reflected in the enormous purple orbs they have for eyes. “Kintarr for sale?” Is what we hear through the translators they wear. We wear no translators, but we speak Meero, the universal trading language, and that’s what we hear through their two-way translator boxes now.

“Nob!” I shout back in Lemoran, before shouting the word in Meero for good measure, “Centare!”

Bebette chokes back a laugh. Reyna shoves me in the back. Tana drops her face into her hand. Merquin pushes me aside and approaches the Walrey contingent with the diplomacy that I lack. “We have kintarr for sale. We sell at thirty-thousand credits per pouch, three million credits per tun, or resources and wares of equivalent value. We’re interested in Walrey silk threads…”

“And Walrey honey,” I blurt. It has healing properties that my clan uses both for medicinal purposes and recreational enjoyment. Its popularity is only increasing at the markets.

They reply, “Raw or treated? Treated will cost more.”

“Untreated. We treat it ourselves with our own dyes, but we would like to buy some of yours, specifically the amber and yellow shades. We can’t manufacture shades that light.”

“And the Walrey honey,” I whisper again, irritated that I’m here. Irritated that I’m negotiating. Irritated that no one is ohring listening to me!

The Walrey out front makes a buzzing sound, the transparent wings on his back flapping too quickly for me to see them at all. His thin forelegs rub together in front of his fanged maw and he nods his head. “We’ll only be able to give you amber and gold. The yellow is out of season.”

“Fine. But we expect at least one tun of silk and two tuns of dye for every kintarr pouch.”

The Walrey’s need time to confer. As their leaders turn away to face the others, I hiss, “Walrey honey.” Merquin flaps her hand at me behind her back so the Walrey’s can’t see. I growl in a voice that’s deeper, but louder, “Wal. rey. hon. ey.”

“How much?” Tana leans over to whisper in my ear.

“Six pouches. I’ll trade pouch-per-pouch for kintarr.” She lifts both of her hairless, protruding brows, clearly surprised. Kintarr is one of the most valuable commodities in the known quadrants. To trade one-to-one for it is unheard of. But I don’t negotiate. The others might, but I don’t. So I pay what I can afford for what I think is the value of an item’s worth.

I nod, then say, “We value it highly in my clan.”

“Apparently.” Her surprise releases and she nods at me once. I am satisfied my request will be taken and the order will be placed with Tana, so I use the opportunity to back out of the ring of Lemoran clan chiefs and head for the closest exit. I need air. I have no idea how I’m going to survive another half-lunar of this. That’s how long it will take me to get off this planet with no shrubbery and no trees and another solar’s journey after that, I’ll be back on the moss-covered rock that I call home.

The ballroom entrance is guarded by a curtain. I slip behind it into a foyer that’s almost entirely made of helos — a brilliant white and black stone — with chandeliers dripping from the ceilings in the shape of stalactites. Wait a second…did they make those out of…Pagh!

“The damn lights are made out of kintarr! Probably from my own ohring mine! Those are a rare energy source. Not meant for decoration!”

I’m still shouting up at the ceiling when a cheery voice booms across the room. “Raingar!”

I wince. I’ve been spotted. Pagh!

I growl and look sideways over the edge of my horn at the Niahhorru pirate sprinting towards me. Seeing my own horn in my peripheral vision, I realize I’m touching the base again. What the…

It’s tight. The skin has been tight ever since we entered orbit. I wonder if it’s the stress of this horrible place. Yeffa, that must be it… All I know is that I just don’t like it.

“Raingar, how are you?” I notice that he’s wearing the traditional grey tantu leather pants Niahhorru pirates always wear — a clear sign he’s breaking with the formalities of this nonsensical affair — and I remember that he’s one of the few beings here I like.

Tolerate.

Can endure.

Meanwhile, I’m trapped in this ohring tunic made out of a silk that came from a bug that lives deep in the earth of Quadrant Four and has three butts through which it excretes said silk and no eyes. “You’re looking as pleased as ever,” he says, spreading all four of his silver arms and beaming at me with his shiny teeth.

I grunt, upper lip lifting in a snarl.

When his smile holds, my shoulders slump forward, defeated. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t answer right away, but the massive silver orbs of his eyes shift left then right. His lips stutter as he spots an Oroshi captain walking by with its guard — a female. The Oroshi spots Tevbarannos, too, and gives him a subtle wave of one tentacle when it passes by — a look I would never win, not even from a creature that is all green-grey tentacles and nothing else. Herannathon, another pirate I admire, once told me it’s because I don’t smile and look around at everyone like I’m one wrong word away from committing a brutal, bloody murder, but I know what I look like.

Like a rock.

But ohr what I look like. We Lemoran are the best species in these eight quadrants. Decent, hardworking beings with honor woven into our rocky outer skin, and threaded through the pink blood we bleed. Not like these honorless pirates with their four arms and their bright smiles, and even less like these gaudy quadrant one morons with their one thousand princes and one billion princesses, and even less like the spineless Oroshi who are, well, quite literally spineless.

“What are you doing here? Last time I saw Rhorkanterannu, he told me that he’d rather be caught in an Oosa orgy than ever come back to Quadrant One.”

“Better an Oosa orgy than an Oroshi one.” Tevbarannos shudders and continues watching the Oroshi until it disappears up the stairs and out of view.

I try to picture what coupling with an Oroshi would be like and immediately retreat from the image. “I suppose you’re right,” I huff.

Tevbarannos laughs easily. All the ohring pirates laugh easily… “I’m actually looking for someone.”

When he doesn’t say more, I roll my eyes. “Good luck with that.” I stomp off, but he shouts after me, “You haven’t seen any Egama here have you?”

“Of course I have! They’re giants — bigger than I am. They’re hard to miss.” I wave him off and stomp towards the stairs, but he rushes after me and shocks the ohr out of me when he grips my bicep and tries to lead me somewhere to the left. “What are you doing?” I remain rooted and glare at him with a frown.

He cocks his head and gives me a pleading look, but when I still don’t budge, his look turns frustrated. He crosses his lower arms over his chest, and then his upper ones on top of those. “You are a stubborn brute. Herannathon warned me about that.”

I’m curious as to where Herannathon is, but the words damn themselves behind my teeth. My horns are aching again, more noticeably now. I growl and start to walk away, up the stairs where I can see Oosa rolling back and forth over the floor — they’re gelatinous-looking blue beings and I hate conversing with them. They always want to have sex with each other mid-interaction! Realizing they’re blocking almost the entire landing above me, my shoulders sink even more.

Suddenly, Tevbarannos is there, politely asking the Oosa to move out of his way. He catches my gaze when he has a path cleared and ushers me forward — not towards the divan with Quadrant Five warriors spread across it engaged in a gambling round of mok-biz with some Hypha delegates — bright orange creatures that walk on two feet, have two hands, and are made remarkable by the set of fins that shoot out of their heads in every direction, and that are the second most populous species of Lemora — but toward a less crowded hallway.

Here, he catches my elbow with his lower left hand and drops his voice to a whisper, “I just wanted to tell you that if you stick around, you’ll run into Igmora and Tyto.” He makes a face that I can’t interpret, but when his eyes shift nervously, I frown.

“What do I care? They’re flesh peddlers. We don’t have any occasion to trade with them. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” His grip tightens on my arm. “Have you seen her?”

“Her who?”

“Their newest…acquisition.” He has the decency to look embarrassed and drop his gaze as he says that.

Meanwhile, my face is burning for entirely different reasons and all of them come down to rage. “You mean the sex female they’re looking to sell? Nob! I told you already, I don’t deal in females. On Lemora we males believe in coming by our females the old fashioned way. Through hard-earned courtship!”

I start away again, until he says so quietly I almost miss it, “I heard that the female they have for sale is a human.” Human…I haven’t heard of that species before and I thought I’d heard of everything.

And though I don’t give an ohring ohr, a tight pressure fills my horns, all the way through to the tip before rattling back down and settling in with a dull, aching throb. It’s an ache which only gets worse as I turn away. It makes me wonder something ridiculous! Incredulous! Outlandish. Ha-ha-worthy…

If maybe, just this once, I should give this bawdy pirate my attention and actually listen to him.

“Human? What’s human?” I say despite my best effort.

Tevbarannos closes the space between us and speaks like he’s divulging sacred rites. “A new species class, they’re under Voraxian and Niahhorru protection. They are…um…very…I mean the females…they’re um…soft?”

I wait. He doesn’t say more. “Are you asking me?” I shout at him. The nerve! Pagh!

“Centare,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean.” The hard plates that cover portions of his chest lift — a Niahhorru sign of embarrassment. I throw my hands in the air, remembering that even though I am the youngest clan chief, I’m still several rotations older than Tevbarannos. He’s the youngest pirate I’ve met that counts among Rhorkanterannu’s inner circle. Rhorkanterannu is the pirate king of Kor, though I’d never dare say that to his face. Pirates look down on kings. Absently, I wonder what they think of clan chiefs and less-than-quietly harrumph.

“Out with it, Tevbarannos!” I roar.

“I mean they’re um…the females!” He jumps, like someone has just come up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He even turns around, but there’s no one there. His upper shoulders shrug and he exhales, looking exhausted. He rubs his forehead and runs his upper right hand over the top of his head, where his tines shoot up like thick tusks.

He has a whole row of them studding his spine and though his are not as thick as some of the pirates’ I’ve seen, they’re certainly thick enough to impale someone if they were to run into his back on accident. I sigh whimsically… I wish I had tusks. I wish I had tusks covering every inch of me!

“Look. I’m only here alone because there aren’t that many pirates Rhorkanterannu trusts to go looking for humans. They’re delicate and very, um…easy to want to keep? Especially the females. Though some of our Niahhorru females are going mad for the human males, too. They’re a very alluring species. I’m here searching for a human female. Herannathon is looking for her, actually, but we haven’t seen Herannathon in two dozen solars.”

“He’s missing?” That is something of significance. I almost feel…sorry. I liked running into him at these stupid ohring functions, though I’d never tell him as much.

“He isn’t missing, so much as he’s searching. We’ve gotten reports from an Eshmiri friend that he’s tailing an Egama battle pod.”

“An Eshmiri friend?” I balk, jowls quivering with the force of my surprise. “What do you mean an Eshmiri friend? Do you mean fiend? Is that what you meant to say?”

Tevbarannos laughs though it doesn’t look like he meant to. He shakes his head and smiles at me with all of his pearly teeth. “Centare, Raingar. A friend. Her name is Ashmara and she’s a friend of the Niahhorru and the humans. She caught his signal some time back and, according to her, he’s been waiting for the Egama to dock somewhere to gather supplies, but they haven’t. They should be running out of food soon, so he’s hopeful, but he hasn’t been able to latch on mid-flight. They seem to know he’s on their trail at all times and are consistently evading him.”

“Well, good for all of them, including your Ashmara friend, whoever he is,” I say, trying to get him to correct his previous insinuation that this Ashmara character is female. All Eshmiri are male. Everyone knows that.

I start to stomp off again, but Tevbarannos holds me back, the ungrateful whelp. “Rhorkanterannu sent me to try to help, just in case the Egama thought to stop here to trade. But then we heard that Igmora and Tyto had a female of their own and we wondered if maybe Herannathon made a mistake and the trade was conducted already.”

“Well, why don’t you just ask them! I don’t understand what you’re telling me all this for. I don’t deal with flesh peddlers, pirates, hoomains, or any of the lot! I am Lemoran!”

The male groans at me, like I’m the insufferable one. He rubs one hand down his face and blocks me with two when I try to shove past him. “I’m coming to you because I want to know if they’ve extended you an invitation to see the female. They are asking for a pouch of kintarr just to view her and since you hold the most kintarr here, I was hoping you could tell me if she matched Herannathon’s human’s description.”

My jaw opens, then shuts. I can nearly hear it creaking like a rusted hinge. On the one hand, I’m appalled by the idea of flesh peddlers — even ones so renown as Igmora and Tyto who spend rotations grooming their acquisitions to become the most exotic and skilled pleasurers in the galaxy — but I’m almost, just a little, offended that Igmora hasn’t come to me.

She knowsthat if she wants kintarr, there is no one here to match our supply. Does she think even less of us Lemoran chiefs than she does Rhorkanterannu’s youngest pirates?

I frown and narrow my eyes. “You were approached?”

Tevbarannos nods so guilelessly it makes me immediately annoyed because it’s impossible to be annoyed with him. “By Igmora herself?”

He nods again.

I frown harder. “And you made an offer,” I say. It is not a question, but an assumption.

“Centare, I told you. We’re not looking for any human. We’re looking for a human. A female. She has light brown skin…almost like helos? But not quite so bright. I’m not sure. It’s white but not white and pink but not pink. Do you know what I mean?”

“Nob!” I growl, huffing between my lips, “How should I know? I haven’t been approached!”

Tevbarannos’s eyes widen. “Truly? But…but…but,” he stammers.

“Out with it!”

“You hold the most kintarr!”

And I feel myself heat slightly. My horns…they’re feeling even more tender than they did. They haven’t felt tender like this since…ever. Since never. Even when I was a youngling and my horns were growing in, my head hurt, but my horns didn’t hurt at all. Now it’s the ohring horn part that hurts. That rough exterior could penetrate the flesh of any living creature, Oosa included — we’re their greatest adversaries in the gladiator’s arena of Evernor. But pained as they are like this, I couldn’t attack a Walrey! I hate it. Just like I hate this whole ohring conversation. Hate it! And I hate that Igmora didn’t approach me most of all.

“I…”

Tevbarannos cuts me off. “Word is that the current bid for the female is already up to four.”

“Four pouches of kintarr for the female?” I huff, somewhat assuaged. “That doesn’t seem like so much for a female cultivated by those degenerate…”

“Centare, centare.” He shakes all four of his hands at me before slowly repeating, as if speaking to a youngling, “Four tuns, Raingar. Tuns, not pouches.”

I choke on my own saliva. Tevbarannos is clapping on my back with two of his hands, which doesn’t help matters much. The only thing that would help me regain my breath — and my sanity — is knowing that he made some kind of horrible joke and that he didn’t just offer the two most despicable creatures on this side of the quadrants enough kintarr crystals to power a small city for a rotation. An amount that would take my entire clan half a rotation to mine.

“Shrov,” he curses in Meero.

“Ohr,” I curse in Lemoran, still choking. “Who offered them four tuns? Who offered them that much? Don’t tell me it was a pirate. I know you don’t have that much kintarr or access to it and I swear to the stars, if you or Rhorkanterannu try to rob me, I’ll rip off two of your arms. The bottom two.”

He chuckles. “If Rhorkanterannu wanted to rob you, you’d never know he was there.”

“I don’t doubt it.” I straighten up, clutching his shoulder as a support so hard he winces before prying my fingers off his skin. “That still doesn’t explain who has access to that quantity and from where they acquired it.”

“I saw her approach the Egama and the Oosa as well.”

“I thought that the Egama sold the female?”

“We aren’t sure.”

“But if they did, why would they bid on her?”

He shakes his head. “Egama mercenaries might have sold her. These Egama here are of the federation.”

“Hm,” I scowl, then rub my chin thoughtfully — though what I really want, is to rub my horns. “They wouldn’t have anything to do with one another.”

“Precisely.”

I stare down the hall, thinking back to the Egama giants I saw in the ballroom lurking over the other guests. One-eyed giants with moss-colored skin, they stand twice as tall as I do.

“I pity the female,” I grumble, then I remember that I don’t deal in flesh and I don’t negotiate and I’d never pay that price for anything, unless, maybe, it comes in a honey jar. I start away from him again. As I do, the base of my horns don’t just heat now, they itch. It’s like the shell encasing them is contracting bit by bit, trying to smash them to pieces.

Tevbarannos blinks at me with his enormous silver eyes, looking young and innocent and confused, more than anything else. “You aren’t even curious to see what she looks like?”

“Nob.”

“Herannathon was right. You’re a real bore, you know that?” He says with a grin.

It irks me, making me want to grin, too. “Pagh!” I shout, shrugging his grip off of my arm. “I don’t have time for this…”

But as I turn to walk out of the tunnel, I’m arrested by the sight of the last being I’d have wanted to see among all the beings in these great and miserable cosmos. Why oh why did they have to elect me to be clan chief? Gorman would have done a fine job!

“Raingar.” The sound of my name in that voice I’ve heard before makes me cringe. I turn down the hall, only to be halted by Tevbarannos blocking the way.

“Move,” I shout at him.

He just stares past me in frustration. “Igmora,” he says and for a few moments — the most painful of my life and that has nothing to do with my horns’ sudden itchiness — we dance around one another, neither moving the respective direction we’d hoped.

My shoulders slump forward before electricity radiates up my spine at the gentle press of treacherously soft fingers against my bare arm just below the arm hole of my sleeveless tunic. My shoulders roll back, double time. My rough skin sizzles under her touch. She knows how to touch a male. How to manipulate. It’s what they do, Igmora and her scaled mate.

“Igmora,” I say stonily, turning to see the female with bright orange skin. Some say she’s part-Hypha part-Voraxian, but I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know is that she’s orange and about as gentle as a whip. She stands slightly shorter than I do, but is waif-thin and covered in a slick fabric that catches light and turns it all manner of color depending on the way she moves. It attracts the eye, but I don’t dare look anywhere but into hers. She sees everything. She knows what males like. But I don’t like anything that can’t be found on Lemora.

I hate everything.

But I like my rock. My rock is nice and the people on it, solid.

She rolls her eyes, the color of pitch, so oily and black. Her gaze flashes to Tevbarannos. She slinks past me, slides her other hand over his shoulder and pulls away from me in the same fluid motion. “Don’t worry, I’m not here for you. I come with some news, Tevbarannos. For a small price, I’d be willing to give you a viewing. It won’t be as…intimate as the viewings some of the bidders will receive, but I’d be willing to let you have a look to confirm your…” She casts a dismissive glance in my direction before pulling Tevbarannos past me and dropping her tone so that I can no longer hear it. She has his attention — all of it — and then she…they both…she…she…

She turns her back on me.

I…I am not a particularly proud male, but I don’t like that. I hate it. And I do something unexpected. Instead of keeping silent and continuing my hunt for the exit, I shout, “A decent male prefers his female strong and salt of the earth! Not a fragile pet that he had to pay an obscene amount of kintarr for!”

“Alright, Raingar,” she says without looking over her shoulder at me. “I am aware of your feelings on the matter. You don’t need to worry about receiving an invitation from myself or my mate. I wouldn’t dare dishonor your Lemoran sensibilities.”

“You…I…pagh!”

“The exit is down the main hall to the right. I know that’s what you’re looking for, anyway. Goodbye, Raingar. Good luck with your…negotiations.” She glances at me over her shoulder and offers a smile that’s either menacing or filled with humor. With her, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Then she and Tevbarannos disappear around the corner. I follow. I follow them out into the main hall but where they go left, I go…well, I don’t go anywhere at first. I just stare in the direction they’ve disappeared wondering what’s unnerving me more — my curiosity, my pride…or my horns. I’m touching them again. The itch has settled into that stultifying pressure that I despise more than Igmora and the sum of her unsavory parts.

Air! Wind! Fresh air. Not this perfumed princess piss. I stomp towards the exit, past the mok-biz table, past the Oosa coupling openly on some atrociously bright green benches. I shudder and it has nothing to do with how I feel seeing them and everything to do with the strange taste of the perfume in the air, which seems to be giving me an even more severe headache. The scent makes me frown.

I think about what Tevbarannos said about this newly discovered hoomain species. Soft, he’d called them. I wonder if he means they’re like the Oosa or the Oroshi. I doubt that, though. He also called them alluring and very few would qualify the Oosa or the Oroshi as alluring, outside of their own species. I can’t picture her, but I pity her. Based on what Tevbarannos said, she’ll go to either an Egama warrior who’s likely to break her on their first coupling or an Oosa clan who’s equally likely to suffocate her with their blubber.

I’m still thinking about this sad female coupling with a blob or a beast when I reach the tunnel that leads to the exit and stomp down it. There are a few doors in this hall. Which did Igmora say to take? The one on the right? I can’t remember. There aren’t any beings here to ask — not that I would have asked even if there had been — so I pick the farthest door down the hall on the right and push the door open…

My jaw unhinges, easily this time. A hinge so well oiled that air flutters in and out of my gaping maw breezily. For a moment, I forget where I am. Not where. Who. I forget who I am.

All I know is that this is not the exit and that my horns have discovered the very definition of pain and yet, I could not care any less.

The scent suffocates me and I inhale once, and then again for good measure and a ghastly thought occurs to me…

I don’t…hate this.