Taken to Lemora by Elizabeth Stephens

4

Raingar

“Ouh.” I make the sound again, louder this time because no one is paying me a lick of attention. My halls are full, but the foul creatures who occupy so much of my space are all busy working. “Ouhhhhhhhhh.”

I’m lying on the stone floor in the center of the great hall, my arms and legs spread out to the sides as I stare up at the stone ceiling, wishing that a comet would fall through the overhead skylight and end my suffering. The comet would have to be very small though, because I wouldn’t want it to take out any of the ceiling and hurt anybody else. Or rebuild my keep. It’s a nice hall. A good home. And right now, it’s overflowing with too many beings of all kinds and none of them are the one I want to see.

“OUUHHHHHHHH!”

Gorman’s face appears above mine, hanging there all round like a moon. Gorman is Hypha and has bright orange skin, fins sticking out of either side of his head and large black eyes that take up most of his face. His nose is two slits and his mouth is a small thing full of short, square teeth. He doesn’t smile — he rarely lets me get away with my tantrums — but says in a flat voice, “Can I help you, Raingar?”

“Ouhhhhh…”

He cuts me off. “Yeffa, we heard you the last hundred thousand times. If you’d take this tirade to your private quarters, the Rekkaru could get along with their business.” The Rekkaru make up the bulk of the foul miscreants littering my great hall at the moment. Small, dainty little creatures with wings, they make the best couriers and right now, my hall is packed with merchandise as deliveries continue trickling in from all the Eight Quadrants.

It’s Gorman’s job to coordinate where things go. It’s my job to meet the dignitaries making the deliveries and instill a fear of the afterlife into them when they land so that no one ever tries to cheat, lie to or steal from Lemoran. And no one ever does. Except for pirates. Bloody stinking pirates.

But I’ve been here since sunrise — before sunrise, because do you think I ohring slept? Nob! — refusing to meet anyone or do anything but lay here contemplating how well my life had been going and how things went so wrong so quickly. Gorman, the clever idiot, decided to bring the dignitaries into my ohring keep. I thought it was punishment but it’s even worse.

He’s using my current mood to help further last minute negotiations. He says that I’m actually doing a better job than normal and was particularly pleased with how things went with the Oroshi. Rather than linger and languish, eating all of our finest food stores, the Oroshi dignitary moved tentacle over tentacle to get back to his ship when I moaned at him. Apparently, he thought I was diseased and didn’t want to catch it. He also paid full price for everything.

I hated that Oroshi for it. I hate Gorman for this. I hate everyone!

Almost everyone.

Everyone but the one I can’t figure out how to claim…

“OUHHHHHHHHHHHH!” My horns burn. I croak in Gorman’s face.

His flat expression twists down at the corners, turning his small mouth to a near perfect arch. “Raingar, get up. I signed on to be your second, not your mother. Now that the dignitaries are all gone, you can take your tantrum to your private chambers. Or, better yet, get on your feet and help me with this.”

He shakes a log book at me, the pages worn and dog eared but immutable. Not like all of this fancy shmancy Voraxian and Niahhorru technology that’s known to be fallible and corrupted, we Lemoran rely on our own brains! Our hands and blocky feet! The occasional pad pad and holo screen are unfortunate consequences of having achieved inter-Quadrant flight. I wish we never had…

But then I’d never have found Essmira.

I start to moan again and he kicks me in the side. “Ouch! That hurt,” I lie, jerking up so quickly he starts back. I’m quicker than he is though, and snatch his book from him. Lying back down, I flip through the pages only to realize I’m holding it upside down. “What’s the issue?” I snarl.

He seems surprised by my answer because his orb eyes get bigger and his little mouth twitches in a small smile. “Here.” He flips to a page in the book, turns it right side up and hands it back to me. “You ordered seven crates of this liquid but no one knows what it’s for.”

I keep one eye open, but let the other stay closed — for effect — as I read over the pages. “That’s fire essence.”

His fins twitch, a sign that he’s really irritated with me and not just pretending. That makes me feel worse. “What?”

I grunt and shove up onto my elbows, forcing Gorman back a few feet. He stands up to his full height and tucks the book against his chest when I return it. He holds his ink pen down and to the right like a warrior might a sword at the ready.

“That’s what the Niahhorru called it.”

“You bought from pirates.” He raises the indented skin above his eye that’s sort of like a brow, but not. I nod. “At a fair price?”

“Yeffa!”

His slitted nostrils flared wide and I scrunch mine — well, as much as Lemoran skin can scrunch. A little embarrassed, I admit, “Well, I bought it at a price.” Gorman looks ready to read me my final rites. I continue quickly. “It’s oil for the Eshmiri dome lamps. The floating ones. You know the ones we use for…”

“I know what Eshmiri dome lamps are,” Gorman huffs. “But I also know that they’re built for single use. That’s why the Niahhorru switched to yeeyar.”

“That’s how the Eshmiri built them, but the Oroshi use them, too. They made a small modification using ioni excretions to produce this oil that can be used to refill the Eshmiri lights. We can reuse them now, too.”

He blinks, eyelids closing from the sides. “Oh. This will save us a fortune on future costs for the lights?”

“Is that a question?” I growl.

“Nob. Just surprised.” He makes a note in his book. “Do you know how much we’ll be saving with this?”

“Seventeen pouches of kintarr’s worth every rotation.”

“Good. Very good.” He shrugs his shoulders back like he doesn’t mind his silk tunic at all. The ohring male has the gall to have another silk robe draped over the top of it. Pagh! Then, Gorman whistles loud enough to win a startled yelp from me.

“Would you knock it off!”

He ignores me and shouts loud enough that his voice carries throughout the crowded hall. “Mino and Closette! You can use that liquid to restore power to domes. Bring one here and Raingar will show you how. Raingar.” He kicks the side of my foot. “Won’t you?”

I grumble noncommittally but my legs still curl beneath me as I prepare to stand.

“And then you’ll help identify the three other shipments I can’t.”

I grumble again.

“And then you’ll get your heavy rear up to the pad pad stables and you’ll take a cart down to Merquin’s keep and you’ll respond to the three queries she’s sent. She even sent a messenger for you, for ohr’s sakes.” His fins twitch and his fingers curl tighter around his log book. “What does she want from us, Raingar?”

I burn, mortified at having to reveal what it is that I’m going to have to reveal, and grateful that the other loud mouthed clan chiefs haven’t disclosed her presence on our planet yet. They’ll have to — we’ll all have to account for how fourteen tuns of kintarr just…disappeared. I’m just not ready to tell them…yet.

“She doesn’t want anything from us, Gorman. She just wants to meet with me about something.” My voice is so rough I’m hardly sure he can understand me. And then I’m sure he can’t when he asks me to repeat myself.

“It’s not anything serious, Gorman. Don’t look at me like that.” I feel heat in my face and pain in my horns. I reach up and touch them and Gorman’s eyes narrow. He looks frightening when they narrow. “Stop that! I don’t like it!”

Gorman blinks, sucks in a breath and revs up to say something…then just shakes his head. “Fine, Raingar. You know I trust you with my life. I can trust you with this small thing, too.”

Gorman has been my advisor since I was first nominated and then elected clan chief. He was a contender for clan chief as well — I even voted for him. I worry that his not being of the Lemoran species had something to do with his electability. It makes me feel like pad pad dung, that thought, because I trust him more than anyone. I may look like a rock, but he is mine and I don’t like keeping things from him. Even small things.

I open my mouth to just ohring tell him what happened on Quadrant One, but he’s already ushering a small cluster of creatures towards me and ordering me to demonstrate to all of them how to relight the Eshmiri domes using the fire essence I bought off of the Niahhorru who themselves procured it from the Oroshi.

That lasts an eternity. Another eon spans the time it takes for me to explain to a group of Lemoran how to power the wind propellers I purchased from a Voraxian delegation. It’ll help us keep the kintarr mines cool in my clan.

The Rekkaru approach me next with questions on where to distribute the Walrey honey — how much should go to the healers and how much to the witches who spin Walrey honey into something more…potent.

I’ve just finished that grueling task and seven others when I’m approached by Gorman again and he looks even less pleased to see me than usual. “Merquin is here.” His typically bright orange coloring flushes, turning him umber.

“WhaaaaaAAAAaaat?” My voice lifts at the end and scrambles in the middle. I start to breathe hard and heavy. The dull ache in my horns returns with a fiery vengeance. I reach up and grab onto them both. “Is she alone?”

“Nob.”

“Nob?”

“Nob.”

“Nob!” I glance down at my pants and see them for the coarse, unrefined wool that they are and panic. “Are they coming in now?”

Gorman’s fins flash in true irritation. “Raingar, you’ve never kept me in the dark before. I need to know what happened when you were in Quadrant One. Did you negotiate?”

“Pagh! You know I don’t negotiate. Do these pants look okay?”

“Then did you…” He freezes and glances around. The Lemoran male standing next to him has also gone still and so has the female beside him.

They all look at me and look at each other and then look at my pants but it’s Gorman who hisses, “You have never cared what your pants look like before. Did you crack one of your horns?” He says, actually sounding horrified. The female Lemoran nearest him gasps. “Are you in pain? Do we need to take you to the healer?”

The Lemoran male — a male called Bruttut — says, “Did you fall down a flight of stairs and break your skull?”

“Maybe it was Merquin,” the female, Talia, suggests with a shrug that says she doesn’t care one way or the other. “Maybe she pushed him.”

“Nob! I didn’t fall down the stairs! Do I have time to go change? Are they coming in now? Are they…”

And then a hush falls through the front half of the chamber and time suspends. Everything that comes next happens in slow motion. Merquin strides in through the massive, arched doors at the end of the space, two of her closest assistants crowded in close beside her as she points out the different features of my great hall.

“And you’ll see here, Raingar has erected his keep with four towers and a great hall in their center. Did you also see the long house built between two of the towers on the left when we approached?”

My ears strain — my whole entire body strains — to hear the answer. But I don’t. “Exactly that. There, he keeps his private chambers. Unlike Librida and I, Raingar doesn’t much care for village life. He’d rather stay here away from the commotion.” It was a generous way of saying that I hate everyone. Far, far too generous. Merquin must have gotten into the Walrey honey.

Soft laughter emanates from beneath the hood of the cloaked figure between the three Lemoran females. Females. Thank the ohring sun. Seeing her with males might have made me kill one of them. Or it would have hurt my feelings. Or it would have done both.

“There he is,” I hear Merquin say before she pitches her voice louder, attention narrowing on me standing on the short flight of stairs that lead up to my rather simple, piddly stump of a throne.

I glance around wildly, wondering if she could be talking about someone else as I try not to simultaneously get an erection and poop myself. She’s here. She’s ohring here! “Raingar. Oh Raingar! There you are,” Merquin sings. Her voice is light but her glare is icy. It frightens me.

“Nob. I’m not,” I answer perfunctorily, wondering if there’s a place behind me I might hide, but the female who’s mine looks up as I speak and meets my gaze with a soft, barely there smile.

Oh nob. Nob nob nob. I’m not ready for her smile. I’m not ready for any of it. I’m like a lunar blossom, shriveling away underneath the soft touch of the early solar sun. Because that’s exactly what she’s like. Lemora in the morning, when the world has just begun to stir. When everything is peace, it’s very definition.

Everything else has dissolved but the sight of her face, so I’m surprised to find that the rest of her body has made its way into my personal sphere. Merquin stands beside her, the both of them at the base of the stairs. The assistants stand slightly back. I stare at her face, well aware that Merquin’s rambling about something, but I haven’t heard a word. I can’t hear anything. I’m deaf.

“AM I DEAF?”

My mate blinks her black and brown and white eyes. They form perfect circles that match the shape of her mouth before she says. “Pardon me?”

“You!” I panic. I start to sweat and glance around, praying for some sort of distraction. I see Merquin instead and point a blocky digit at her. “You!” I accuse.

She rolls her eyes and grimaces, but when Essmira turns to glance at her, she’s all smiles instead. “Pardon me. Have I done something wrong? Please. If you inform me as to what I’ve done I’ll ensure it never, ever happens again…”

Merquin takes her by the upper arm and pushes her another step closer to me. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Essmira.”

There’s some bite in her tone that I don’t like and don’t understand when her every other action toward Essmira has been one of kindness — a trait Merquin isn’t most known for. I’m known for it even less. Perhaps, not at all.

“And we talked about this already. You’ve got to stop apologizing.”

Essmira’s gaze drops to the stairs between our feet in a way that I despise. “Pagh! Don’t listen to her. You can apologize. You can do anything you want!” I end on a humph and Essmira shoots me a surprised smile. Merquin glares and, again, when Essmira looks at her, transforms.

Her hand slides around to Essmira’s back and she pushes her forward, up the first step and across whatever invisible divide had separated us. “Yeffa, I suppose Raingar is right. It’s never happened before but I suppose, eventually, it was bound to.”

Essmira does something wild then. Something totally out of character. She snorts. Snorts like a hungry ruffalumph searching for ranxcera blossoms and the pink, glowing fruits that grow beneath them. She immediately covers her mouth, but a small trickle of laughter escapes the cage of her hands.

And then this entire display is followed by the second least expected thing I’d have imagined from this female, who was groomed by Igmora, who is as fake as she is flawless.

“Ohr! I mean stars! Oh,” she curses. She curses?

And then she just tightens her hands around her mouth and shuts right up while the rest of us stare at her in shock.

Because nothing about Essmira’s reaction is fake. And it is certainly not perfect.

In fact, it’s almost unattractive.

And immediately, my horns turn to liquid Walrey honey because — forget about her face — this is the most attractive thing about her.

Merquin reacts before I do. She belts out a laugh so loud that it fills the entire hall. I glance up and wonder if they’ve all stopped because of that laugh…but I don’t think so. Even though Merquin is laughing, all eyes are still straining to catch a glimpse of the creature beneath the hood. The one with brown hands and sharp red fingernails and red ripping across her skin as a tease of whatever lies beneath. I paid fourteen tuns of kintarr just to know. I need to know. But first, I need to hear her make those sounds again.

I smile — even chuckle a little. Essmira releases a little gasp behind her hands, her eyes getting all big. Her hands fall away from her lips and she opens her mouth, but it’s one of Merquin’s assistants, Hebba, who shouts first, “Holy ohr! Raingar smiled!”

“Nob! Nob, I did not,” I shout, still smiling, but fighting harder against it now. “And even if I did, it’s Essmira’s fault!”

“Essmira?” We all turn to see Gorman standing beside the simple stone seat I use for a throne, looking curiously over our small constellation.

“Oh! Apologies for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Essmira,” she says in unaccented Lemoran. She takes a step forward, which brings her to the step directly below me, and pushes her hood back.

Then she reaches up to catch the air with her right hand and brings it over her heart. Gorman repeats the motion perfunctorily, I can tell, because his eyes have bugged out of his head and he’s staring — staring — at my female with his mouth gaping open and his shoulders slouched. He looks drunk. Not that I’ve ever seen him drunk.

With Essmira’s hood back and her arm sticking out of her cloak, it’s open enough for Gorman and ohring everyone to see the dress she has on underneath. Where did she get that ohring dress! She came with us empty-handed and yet, she’s wearing what is clearly Lemoran fabric stitched perfectly to fit her form. It’s a soft yellow color and makes her skin stand out in bright, striking shades. The dress attaches behind her neck and the sides drape down almost to her hips.

Oh. My. Ohring. Stars. With her arm outstretched, I catch a glimpse of her waist — her bare waist — and see red. My mouth dries. The red that starts at her breasts goes all the way down, stopping just above the curve of her hip bone. Does it cover her…her…her there?!

I open my mouth to shout my question — my request? my demand for proof or contradiction? — but manage to catch myself in the final moment.

It helps when Gorman stutters, “Ess…Essmira. It’s a…it’s…your name is uh…beautiful.” He flushes a dark orange and I throw both hands in the air.

“Don’t stand there gawking at her!” I warble, even though I’d been doing the same thing.

Gorman straightens and for the first time since she caught his gaze, turns and blinks at me. “I…I’m…” He clears his throat and straightens even taller. Nob. Is he…this male who I’ve known half my life and has never bowed to anyone…humbled by her? Nob, he’s trying to impress her. Maybe he’ll win her from me…

“Pagh!” I shout, voice a deep wail. I flutter my hands towards Gorman and force him back a few steps as I block his view of Essmira with my back. Facing her, I shove her outstretched hand down, grab the outsides of her cloak and pull them together over her chest. Then I grab her hood and wrench it back into place.

Merquin clears her throat loudly and steps up behind Essmira and says, “I don’t think that’s necessary. Her hood was only up before to protect against the rain. Outside, there’s a light drizzle.”

“There’s always a light drizzle. She could get wet. The hood stays.”

We engage in a staring contest. Merquin loses and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t have time for this! Essmira, these are your clothes. You made them yourself in the span of one lunar. It’s clear you know how to tailor and dress yourself and you can decide for yourself if you’d like to get wet, keep your hood up or down, or anything else. Don’t let Raingar bully you.

“I’m going to leave you with him now for the remainder of the solar. It’s important that you learn as much as you can about each of the territories so you can decide where you’d like to build your house and what roles there are for you across all of Lemora. I’ll be back for you this lunar.

“Raingar.” She gives me a pointed look over the top of Essmira’s head. And then she actually points, stabbing her finger in my direction threateningly. “Be courteous. I know it’s a foreign concept for you, but behave. Gorman, make sure he does. I don’t need to tell you that Essmira is valuable merchandise.”

The way Essmira winces makes my whole body react. I push up against her and shake a fist angrily at Merquin over her shoulder. “She isn’t merchandise! She’s Lemoran now!”

There are whispers in the crowd that hush as my voice stops ringing. Merquin makes a soft sound and touches the center of Essmira’s back. “Essmira, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“Oh please…don’t apologize.” Her hands twist in front of her as she turns around to face both Merquin and me. “You’ve shown me every kindness. I could not be more grateful that you all purchased me. Please.”

Gorman’s fins wiggle and he looks at me, shocked. He knows we don’t deal in flesh. He knows how much I hate it — genuinely hate those that trade in it, not just the passing hatred I have for everybody else. He knows I’d have had to have a good reason to purchase another sentient being from another. He knows it would have had to be a matter of life and death for me.

And it is. It was. It’s everything.

My right hand twitches to my pulsing horns and his gaze captures everything. He chokes. He actually chokes. Nothing at all could have severed the tension in the great hall more quickly than the sound of Gorman choking to death on his own breath.

“Are you okay?”

“Should we get the healer?”

Talia and Bruttut say at the same time, genuine concern coloring their tones now that it’s Gorman’s health on the line.

I stomp angrily over to him while Merquin and Essmira share a few more soft words I can’t make out over the sound of him half-retching. “Get it together, you miserable Hypha.”

“Ack! Augh! Ock!” He chokes out a few more sounds while I pound on his back and ask a passing Rekkaru to fetch him some water.

Downing it upon the Rekkaru’s return, Gorman straightens himself to his full height and glances between Essmira and I over and over, finally settling his softest expression on her. Not that I blame him. She’s easy to look at. I wish she weren’t.

I’d have rathered a mate just as hideous as me, just as hard and rocky, but Essmira is none of that. She’s perfect as a moon and soft as a petal. I can still remember the small brush of my hand on her wrist… What would it be like to put my blocky hands all over her? I flush and step away from her, trying to use Gorman as a shield.

Finally, Gorman extends his hand and I see that it shakes. I lunge to block him, but he’s a clever male and moves quicker to compensate. He reaches his free arm up to block mine and our forearms collide clumsily.

Reaching in through the opening in her parted cloak, he gently takes her hand. I hate seeing it. I hate it. I trust Gorman with my life but can I trust him with this? Essmira was designed to tempt not only me, but every male. Everyone.

I’m twitchy as a live wire as Gorman’s voice breaks. He darkens even further as he glances at me and then back at her and gently shakes her hand as he says, “My dear heelee, I am Gorman and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart that it is my greatest pleasure to meet you. Finally.”