Taken to Lemora by Elizabeth Stephens

12

Raingar

“Merquin? Merquin, I know you’re ohring in there!” I shout up at the darkened walls of her keep. The drawbridge that crosses the short river surrounding her keep is closed. The drawbridge is never closed. Gorman must have been right. She must be here and now Merquin is keeping her from me.

I rub my chin thoughtfully, thinking back on Gorman. He’d been in my keep, organizing pallets like he’d never even left. I’d been surprised to see him — surprised and grateful — but he’d just dismissively told me where to find Essmira and it felt like…we were friends again.

Though I got the distinct impression that the rat bastard was up to something…in fact, he looked far, far too pleased to be helping me…I believed him and now I’m here. He’s never given me any excuse not to.

He’s my best friend and I’m glad he’s back in the keep with promises to stick around, if only until the next time I fail her. And I’m a clumsy dolt, every bit the wooden-headed Egama she accused me of being. There will be a next time.

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout again, “Librida! Come talk to me.”

“She’s not here,” comes Librida’s answering reply from the small landing on top of the wall.

“I can hear you!”

“Nob, you can’t,” she snaps back petulantly — it’s something I would do.

I plant my hands on my hips, then throw them up in the air. If I could get across and scale the damn walls, I already would’ve. My horns are on ohring fire, but chills wrack my body, making me shiver. I’ve never felt so terrible. I’m sick. I’ve never been sick.

“Merquin!” I shout and I shake my right fist up at the small Eshmiri globe illuminating the upper landing. “I need you! You have to talk to me. You’re my best friend! Well, aside from Gorman, and right now I feel like everyone is lying to me. Or ignoring me. Do you know that I went to the ohring pad pad stables and the stable master wouldn’t give me one! Me! The ohring clan chief!”

I would have raged against the stable master, but she’s Rekkaru and I could seriously hurt her and I don’t want to hurt anyone.

I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

Not anymore. Never again.

Merquin’s chuckle greets me before she says loudly, “You hardly deserve the title.”

“I know.” My organs all feel enlarged. Too big for my body, they’re pushing against my brittle bones. I stoop, having to catch myself on my knees. I say as loud as I can, “I hurt my mate, Merquin.”

There’s a pause and a voice that is not Merquin’s but her mate’s says, “We know. We saw the bruises. And then we heard this solar you were keeping her prisoner.”

“The bruises, I took her freedom, I insulted and neglected her, I…I’m hardly better than Tyto!” Still better, but hardly.

Silence. It’s harder this time. The lunar has fallen around us and is deepening quickly and I just want to see her, to lower my horns to the ground at her feet and promise her the world if it just means she’ll talk to me again. And if she promises never to call me master. And if she promises to stop running from me, but just tell me where she’ll be so I can know she’s okay, even if she asks me not to join her. But I would. I’d go anywhere she wanted to be if it means I can just be with her.

“And?” Librida draws the word out. I don’t understand.

“What?”

“And what do you plan to do about it?”

“Give up!” I roar. “She is miriga. She makes the rules. And I will have to learn to trust that she’ll make rules possible for me to follow.”

“Unlike your rules.”

“Yeffa.” I wince, thinking about all the ways I tried to curb or stop her from living. “That’s why she makes them from now on.”

“Does she know that?”

“Nob, you silly female! That’s why I’m here! To tell her!”

More silence. I hear murmuring up above, but it isn’t distinct. A moment later and I hear a loud cranking and a dull creaking. The heavy wooden drawbridge groans as it lowers and I have to step back to avoid getting crushed by it. Merquin and Librida appear on the platform, an Eshimiri globe floating just behind them. It burns a slightly whiter color than the orange we’re used to, a sign that the new oil is working.

Librida strides purposefully towards me, her hands clasped in front of her robes. Even though Merquin looks like she wants to impale me — and she’d have every right to — she’s waved off by Librida who moves to the very edge of the drawbridge and gives me a stern, sad look with her large, black eyes.

“You know that you do deserve her, Raingar. You didn’t think you deserved to be clan chief, either. but there’s a reason you are. I can see it, the clan chiefs see it, even Essmira sees it. You should hear how highly she speaks of you. It drives Merquin crazy.

“When Merquin first approached me with questions of courtship, I wasn’t half as open as Essmira is to you. You’re already her hero. You got her out of a bad situation. It’s clear you already love her. You just need to show her that you respect her, too. That you trust her.”

“I know…I just…It’s hard…”

“Nob, Raingar. It isn’t. You just don’t trust yourself. You know that you are good enough for her. You know that your position as clan chief is earned. There is no clan chief kinder to their village or more helpful. You consider everything. You made sure to negotiate Walrey honey for Moreth even though its healing properties are only experimental. Your actions are what show that your village can’t do better for a clan chief. Show her through your ohring actions, Raingar, that she can’t do any better for a mate.”

I cringe through her explanation. I hate praise. I hate when the focus is on me. I hate having to try. I don’t know how to try. But…I do know how to do. I can show her things. I know what she likes, at least a little. I can do this.

“I am the chief of my clan. I can do anything,” I tell the two females — two beings that I trust more than any others in the galaxy. Well, aside from Gorman.

And Tana and Reyna and Bebette.

And a host of others.

Pagh! I trust them all equally. And Librida’s right. I trust Essmira, too. Is the only being I don’t trust in the whole of Lemora me? Ohring stars, Essmira’s right. I am an idiot.

“For comet’s sake,” Merquin groans. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’re insufferable. Now can I just see my mate?”

“She isn’t here.”

“This again? If I have to camp out here all lunar and sing victory songs, I will.”

“Stars, that’s terrible.”

“You know you can’t sing,” the two females say simultaneously. They share a look, then laugh.

“She really isn’t here, Raingar,” Merquin shakes her head. She steps up next to Librida and slides a hand possessively around Librida’s lower back, settling it on her hip. I swallow, focused on that hand, wondering how she mastered the ability to touch her mate without hurting her. So much control. So much trust. And it goes both ways between them.

“You mean it?” I rub my chin, unsure.

“Yeffa.”

My brows draw together. My pulse spikes. “Well then, where in Lemora’s suns is she?” The two females exchange a look, debating whether or not to tell me. I can’t let them decide against. “Pagh!” I shout, taking a haggard step forward. “Just tell me. I’ll behave…”

“He will have to or the drunken mob will come after him,” Librida chuckles, shoulders jerking as she laughs.

Merquin grins lopsidedly at her female before turning her gaze back to me and it’s stony all over again. “I hear the party at Winter’s End is wild this lunar. You may need a pad pad if you expect to get there with enough time to catch her.”

“Then ready the beast!” I can’t believe it. Both Gorman and my entire ohring village lied to me to protect her. The thought makes my chin wobble. They love her already. They really do love her.

Librida takes off but Merquin still stands there, arms crossed, frowning. “You’ve done a bad thing, Raingar. A series of them.”

I nod but I don’t disgrace myself, Merquin or Essmira by looking away from my accuser. “Yeffa.”

“You think you’re ready to try for her, but you aren’t.”

I don’t say anything. If Merquin says it, she’s probably right.

“That’s why I wanted space between you two. She’s still discovering herself. And if, this lunar, you go and find her in the arms of another male dancing, what are you going to do?”

Shred his face off. Disembowel him. Throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my chambers and lock her in… “Nurfigh,” I say, stubbing my toe into the mossy soil roughly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“I’m not going to do anything!”

“Hm,” she says. She doesn’t believe me. I know I don’t. But I’m going to try. Is there any more that a mate can do for his miriga, but try? “Behave.”

I grunt. “I’ll try that, too.”

“What?”

“Norfig! Bye!”

A miserable pad pad ride later and I’m riding back into my own ohring village. I stable the pad pad and stomp past the partygoers, my heart hammering in my chest, trying to pound its way through my sternum. The streets are eerily clear — up until I pass the town square. There, the orbs shine bright, illuminating the party that’s spilled near and into the fountain where half a dozen drunk creatures bathe in the shallow pool.

“I hope you all drown! The lot of you!” I shake my fist at them, but only two acknowledge my barb.

One Lemoran male breaks the kiss he has ongoing with his mate just long enough to scowl at me. Both his and his female’s horns are a dull white, where the molting of my horns has stopped.

“Pagh!” I wave him off and drag my heavy feet toward the entrance of an inn I’ve successfully avoided for rotations due to a general dislike of merriment and revelry. But I’ll be merry and revel for her. Well, I’ll try.

I hesitate at the door, terrified of what I’ll find inside. Terrified of…just terrified. I’m damp from the drizzle and grateful that I’m bare chested. I’m wearing the trousers she made for me. She doesn’t like my other trousers. I knew that, but I wore them anyway. Another, small wedge to separate us? Another small rebellion to keep her away? I frown at myself, and plan then never to wear anything but her creations ever again. I want to appear beautiful for her.

Beautiful.

Even if I’m a rock with horns and a temper.

The door swings open in front of me and music bombards my senses first. Then come the smells. Sweat and roasted ruffalumph and, more than anything, lobba-spiced ale. I take a deep breath and take a step forward carefully…only to be crashed into by three Rekkaru buzzing about in front of me. They drop down onto their feet — a drunk Rekkaru is rarely a flying Rekkaru — and laugh when they topple into each other.

“Your mate is a beautiful dancer,” one of them supplies. A female with large grey eyes and long, black hair.

One of the other females walking beside her agrees while the other hisses under her breath, “Didn’t you hear what he did? He imprisoned his mate. Put her up in a tower, he did…” They step out into the lunar and her incriminating words are dashed away from me, drowned out by music and singing, shouting and laughter.

I turn to face it, keeping to the edge of the room. A balcony wraps around the inside of the second story and couples in various states of undress hang from it. Some are mated pairs, but I don’t look at them. I eye the crowd, ignore the stares and the sneers and try to find her and, when I do…I stop moving altogether.

She’s standing on top of the longest table in the room. Barefooted, she lights up the world. Winter’s End is known to be rambunctious, but even this level of debauchery is rare and I know that this lunar, it’s because of her. Every creature in here is looking, leaning, dancing, moving, shifting, glancing towards her. Like she’s the central star that Lemora gravitates around, and we’re all successfully ensnared.

They call her miriga. They honor her. They honor me.

They may not be talking to me right now, but they haven’t forgotten that they care for me at least a little bit. Enough for this. My lips quirk.

I take a step toward her but I’m crippled by her next loud laugh. It’s louder than I’ve ever heard it, more careless, more wild. Her head and torso fall back, but the arms linked through hers keep her upright. I want to focus on the beings next to her, but I can’t pull my gaze away. So I don’t.

My fingers fumble clumsily for a chair — any chair — and I find one and wrench it underneath me. I sit and stare like a slack-jawed idiot, planting my elbows on the small table I drag across the floor until it sits beneath me. Three wyrns of ale tip and two of them shatter on the floor. The Lemoran males who’d been seated at the table stand up and shout curses at me, but I don’t even see them. All I see are her arms above her head and her feet moving and her hips…

I swallow, a brutal image assaulting me as I watch her hips sway underneath a garment that’s far too loose. It should be tighter. Then I could see her shape and picture it more clearly. Her. Underneath me. Moving. Just. Like. That. I don’t have a very good imagination. I need more.

But…

I’m not ready. Touching her again will need to be something I can work towards.

I edge back into the shadows when she spins all the way around, worried that she’ll see me and that I’ll ruin her lunar. I watch her dance. I watch her lips move to words that speak to histories she shouldn’t know, but that doesn’t seem to matter. She is Lemoran. Ohr her past. Ohr what I said to her before in the heat of the mines. Ohr me.

She spins out of Prilla’s grasp and is caught by Charana and the two females spin around and as they continue spinning, a soft chant picks up throughout the inn. I’m not paying attention to the words they say — I never do — until it occurs to me that they’re saying her name.

I smile. And then my gut falls. Prilla’s hands touch her waist again. He’s only touching her to steady her. Not because she feels good against his hands. Not because she’s smiling at him and making him feel like king of the mountaintop.

I close my eyes and take several deep breaths in and out through my nose. Trust. Trust her. Trust me. Trust Prilla. I can do this…I think.

I hope.

I open my eyes and she’s still spinning, but her feet are bare and there are things on the table. She’s heading too close to the edge and she isn’t paying attention because she’s making this high sound with her mouth and they’re all cheering up at her and she’s smiling around at them and then it happens — she trips over a discarded wyrn and loses her balance.

Her heel spills off of the edge of the long table and her arms reach for Prilla and Charana, but both are too busy falling themselves to catch her.

She needs someone to catch her.

I dive forward, shoving creatures out of my way as I lunge to gather her in my arms. She hits my grip and it curls to crush her against me in relief and longing. But we’re still fighting. Maybe she doesn’t like this? I hold her out away from me, every intention of setting her down, but she clutches my arms, unfocused gaze boring through mine. It’s hard to keep the line of her stare. Her eyes, they’re so…so bloody happy.

She makes soft, fluttery sounds as she tries to catch her breath. It makes me want to hold her closer, but I fight and push and pull against the instinct. Instead, I open my mouth. I try for her name, but I have to clear my throat a thousand times, which draws my attention to the fact that everyone in this jumbled, drunken tavern is watching me — watching us — waiting for what happens next…

“Essmira?” I choke, dropping my voice, hating that they’re all listening. I don’t know what to say, what to do, what to ask… I clear my throat. “Can I, uh, cut in?”

Her face softens even more and she smiles and her teeth are so white and straight and her little pink tongue shines so brightly, it almost looks like it’s radiating light…huh. Funny. Then she says, “You would like to dance with me, my Lord?”

I scowl, but I don’t correct her. I haven’t earned my own name back yet, it would seem. “Ughm…yeffa. Yeffa, I would.” I nod vigorously while my insides boil and steam. But the fire is assuaged when she smiles at me. She smiles at me and it’s an inundating thing.

“You’ll have to set me down, my Lord.”

I lift Essmira and set her feet down on top of the table. As I amble up beside her, I use Pilla’s shoulder to help stabilize me and I may squeeze it a little too hard as I climb. And I might also shove him a little too hard as I step up beside her. And I might…push him, too.

I’m trying. I’m not perfect.

He stumbles off of the bench seat and hits the ground. A Lemoran male catches his arm as he does, keeping him upright. He rolls his eyes, but still smiles at me slightly before ambling off, another horn of ale tight in his fist.

I glare at his back, but Essmira keeps me from killing anyone by shouting, “What happened to the music?”

Elmina, who owns the tavern, releases a high pitched whistle and the beings carrying instruments continue in a staggered mess. I can see the three Rekkaru who make up the troupe from here, but only because they’re flying above the heads of so many other clustered bodies.

Two of them carry walbows, large, stringed instruments that carry most of the tune, and one of them has hold of a yiyi, a blue gelatinous mass that makes a high trill through its inner vibrations. Judging by sounds alone, there are at least three horns, two drums and a handful of bells that make up the entire congregation, but I know that they’re likely to swallow up and spit out other players over the course of the lunar.

Folks start to sing and even though Essmira doesn’t know the words to this song, she hums along and the sound is piercing and hypnotic. I feel shaky with need standing so close to her as her eyes close and she starts to sway. The scent of spiced lobba clings to her skin and hair and I know it’s the reason she hasn’t started shouting at me yet.

On her other side, Charana hands her a full wyrn of the stuff. She takes the curved horn in her hand and tilts it to her lips. “Would you like some?” She asks me.

“Did…did you know that this horn is made from wyrn?” I say stupidly.

She smiles and blinks at me languidly and I force myself not to touch her, just to step close enough that I can shout over the sound of the revelry picking back up. “Nob. What is wyrn?”

“Wyrn. Oh. It’s a mineral deposit that forms naturally in the kintarr mines. Delicate, but plentiful, most drinking vessels are made of wyrn. Wyrn is also the name of the mineral its’ made from. It uh…brings out flavor in the lobba spice, too. The ale, I mean. The ale you’re drinking is made from lobba spice.”

Essmira just grins at me, her cheeks full and round beneath her pretty eyes. She stares at me and her eyes twinkle with violent delight. “Charana,” she calls, twisting away from me to grab the female on her other side by the arm. “Is there another wyrn of ale for our clan chief?”

I blush at the title and the obvious deference. Charana seems to think it’s hilarious and snorts. “Of course! There’s always lobba for clan chief Raingar. So long as he deserves it. Do you think he deserves it, Essmira?”

My throat tightens. I watch Essmira’s face as it splits into a staggering smile. “Everyone deserves lobba. But only if they get it in a wyrn. This is the fanciest cup I’ve ever used. Did you know it’s naturally forming from mineral deposits?”

“You don’t say?” Charana cackles and, moments later returns with a wyrn of lobba for me. She reaches across Essmira’s body to drop it into my fist and hugs her before pulling back. “We rather like this one, clan chief.” She winks, the stare directed at me. The challenge.

“I do, too.”

“Then why aren’t you dancing with her? Isn’t a dance what you promised our miriga?”

She’s teasing me now, but I refrain from strangling her. “You’re quite right,” I say through gritted teeth and Charana laughs it up when I stand back and start to…dance?

It doesn’t surprise me that every single bottomless soul in this inn is laughing at me. Here I am, their clan chief, stomping my big ugly feet on the table in front of the most beautiful female in the galaxy. And she doesn’t seem to mind at all.

She spins in the cage of my arms, pressing her back to my front. Her head falls against my chest and she sings loud and clearly to a new tune she recognizes. She tips her wyrn to her lips and some of it spills over the sides and down her neck. I watch the droplets curve over the soft skin of her breasts before kissing the top of her dress.

It was once a pale green color, but now is much darker, stained red in places from the lobba, and pink in others from the kintarr down in the mines. I swallow down my desire and try to match her movements. I fail abysmally, distracted every time.

“I can’t…can’t dance. You can dance but I can’t.” I tell her, trying to peel my body away.

She turns in my arms, pressing her breasts against my chest. Her hooded gaze blinks slowly and she trips and my arms come around her, trying to keep her steady. “You can dance, my Lord.”

I wrinkle my nose. “You’re either a mad female or you’ve had too much ale and I’m willing to bet on the latter.”

She snorts at that, but slides her hands down my chest to my hips. I swallow hard. “You’ve clearly never done this before. But just because you haven’t done this before doesn’t mean you can’t, or that I can’t enjoy you.” Is she…is she still talking about ohring dancing! I start to sweat.

Her hands push my hips slightly to the left and then to the right and then back again. She mimics the motion with her own hips before letting me go and I swing in front of her like a pendulum.

“Ow owwww!” Someone behind me shrieks.

“Raingar, look at those moves!”

“Moves? I was looking at the pants. Essmira made those, you know?”

“You don’t say? She’s working with Timor and Lyla, then?”

“Yeffa. I mean, nob, she was until…”

I’m pulled around by the chatter, but the words fade as more creatures start to cheer. I don’t know why they’re bloody cheering. I know it’s likely at my expense, but I can’t bring myself to cower out of this. I’m a rotten bastard, yeffa, but I’m a clan chief — not a coward.

“Raingar, you’ve got to loosen up a bit! Don’t be so stiff!” Pilla shouts. He’s on the ground below, still. No longer dancing, he’s at a table playing a game of mok bir, the less dramatic version of the Niahhorru game mok biz, played with sticks instead of tokens.

I shake my fist at him and release a snarl, but it’s Essmira who responds on my behalf in words I can’t seem to find. She reaches across my body, slides her two soft hands over each of my arms. She pulls my raised fist back against my body and ticks her chin up at him. “I happen to like our stiff clan chief and the way he moves his hips.” She winks at him and Willa, nearby, shrieks with laughter.

Was that…was that innuendo? Is she…perhaps lobba isn’t the problem then. She truly has gone mental!

My mind shorts. My skin sizzles. I will my cock not to rise, but as she moves against me more vigorously it betrays every command I give it. She twists and spins and sings and dances and I move my awkward giant body on the table, content to stamp and stomp and simply be mesmerized.

She has another wyrn of ale and I have another two. It isn’t enough to dull my sensitivity to her skin, but it is enough to drop the reserve I had about touching her. I keep touching her, catching myself and then flinching away.

She falls against my chest, spilling lobba all over me though she neither seems to care or notice. “You know, I’m not a delicate flower, my Lord.” Her voice is a little slurred and I’m a little worried.

“I know you’re not, miriga” I say, brushing some of the spilled ale away.

“Do you?”

“I…” I’m not sure. “I’m trying. I’m going to try.”

“Good. That’s all any of us can do, isn’t it, Raingar?”

I capture both of her palms against my chest to stop them from fluttering over my skin and making my carefully composed restraint unfurl. “Raingar. You called me Raingar.”

“And you called me miriga.” She leans against me. She’s struggling to stand. Her eyes are already starting to slink shut.

“Miriga, I think we should get you to bed.”

She doesn’t respond and, though I yearn to give her choices, I’m trying and I use that as my excuse when I scoop her off of her feet and carefully carry her from the table to the floor, across the pub, to the stairs to the second floor and find an open sleeping chamber. I kick the door shut behind me and the movement jolts her awake. Her eyes meet mine in the moonlight shining in through the room’s twin windows, one on either side of the narrow bed.

This is it.

The decision rests with me. What kind of life will she lead? The same one she has led under Igmora and Tyto’s vile, repugnant rule? Or something else? Something wild and perfect for this wild and perfect creature.

“I will not stand in your way, Essmira. But I would, I mean, if you’ll still have me, like to be your guide. I am a clan chief here, and we aren’t like the Voraxians — I don’t have control over all the planets in this quadrant — and I’m no scummy Niahhorru pirate. I can’t give you the skies. But I can give you Lemora.

“I know that a female of your caliber deserves everything. The suns, the moons, every shooting star, but I can only offer you mine. Those that I have.” I cradle her with one arm and pull the blankets back before settling her on the room’s only bed.

In the moonlight, the sweat on her skin shimmers like the Lemoran mines just after a fresh harvest. She smiles and leans back and my muscles all twitch, firing with the urge to reach her, gather her up and rut her into oblivion, but I can’t do that. I shouldn’t have done anything to her. I should have just taken Librida and her mate’s ohring advice and let her be. Let her live.

“I would be honored to have you as my guide, Raingar.”

“Shh. I don’t need an answer. You won’t remember any of this when you wake, anyway. Just sleep for now. We can go back to fighting at solarbreak.”

“I don’t think I want to fight anymore. I think I just want to be happy. Isn’t that what you want?”

I nod, heart full to bursting as I touch her hair, her cheek, her nose, her neck. “Yeffa, Essmira. But I already am. Every moment in your presence.” I clear my throat, feeling awkward and sheepish. “I will just be at the door. Shout if you need me.”

“Raingar?”

“Yeffa?”

“Will you hold me in the lunar? I’ve never been held and I’ve always wanted to be.”

My throat gets tight. What a request. So small. So painful. I was planning on sleeping in front of her door to keep the riffraff out but I don’t bother explaining this to her now. From now on, whatever she wants the answer is, “Yeffa. I’ll just get you a pitcher of sweet water first. You’ll need it if you’ve had a lot of ale to drink.”

“Thank you.”

I grit my teeth, wanting her to stop thanking me for things. For everything. Wanting to rip out Igmora’s bloody throat for denying this perfect female something so small as this simple affection in the lunar. But I don’t.

I just fight my way through the dancing horde below and return with a pitcher of sweet water to find her fast asleep. I set the pitcher on the floor beside her bed and stack two cups next to it. Then I slide onto the bed beside her. She smells like bloodstone and like moss, like fresh dew — and now, like lobba. I am careful to wrap a sheet around her, not wanting to abrade her skin any more than I already have with the rough way I’ve handled her and I do just what she asked.

I form my body around hers and strap my arm across her chest. I squeeze her into the cavern of mine and I make her vows, scrolls and scrolls of them, that I will do better, that I will guide her through the wonders of this life, and that she will never hurt again.

She will live and I will not stop her.