Page 25 of I Married A Lizardman

I nodded. “There are different ways to grow mushrooms, but hanging them in a tube is my preferred method. It also makes it easier to harvest—I find.”

Luped pursed her lips, pondering. “I can build the shelves and install the hooks for you,” she said. “You just need to give me the measurements and the type of weight you need to hang.”

My jaw dropped, and my eyes all but popped out of my head. “Really?” I asked, floored.

Luped nodded. “I am the main Builder and architect of the clan,” she explained. “I mainly work with wood and stone, but I have been studying a lot of the foreign techniques involving metal. This will be a nice change from my usual tasks.”

I squealed and, without thinking, I hugged Luped and hoisted myself on my tiptoes to kiss her cheek. She froze, looking at me with a stunned expression. I flinched, promptly letting go of her before giving her a sheepish grin.

“Sorry, I got carried away in my enthusiasm,” I said, embarrassed.

I could see her wheels spinning, an uneasy expression settling on her face.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I added slightly worried. “It is common for humans to kiss people on the cheeks as a sign of thank you.”

Luped slightly recoiled, confusion replacing her discomfort. “Thank you?” she echoed. “I thought a kiss was a sign of affection or love between mates?”

“Oh God!” I exclaimed, understanding dawning on me. “Did you think I was coming on to you?”

Luped’s beautiful blue scales darkened with embarrassment, and I couldn’t help myself from chuckling some more.

“You are a very beautiful Andturian, but I am not making advances to you,” I reassured her. “I am only attracted to males, and I saved myself for my husband, your brother. If all goes well, there will never be another male for me.”

Those words pleased Luped tremendously, and she smiled in approval.

“Humans kiss for various reasons. It all depends on where you kiss,” I explained. “Adults only kiss their mate on the lips, but sometimes, they can do it to their very young offspring, too, as a sign of love or affection. With everyone else, it will be the cheeks, which can be as a greeting, as a thank you, or to show affection. It can be the forehead, usually as a sign of tenderness or as a blessing. It can also be on the back of the hand or on the fingers in greeting, but usually as a sign of respect and deference.”

“Hmmm, it is a complex system with many nuances,” Luped said with a slight frown.

“It is,” I said with a nod, wondering what she would say if I told her some kissing involved tongue play.

“I accept your thank you kiss with a warm heart,” Luped said. “You are bringing new things, ways of thinking, and craft that could be useful to the people. Change is always frightening. Do not expect much support from the clan. But as long as what you do doesn’t undermine my brother, you will have my aid.”

My heart skipped a beat upon hearing those words. After her mother’s reaction yesterday, I had not expected help from anyone, least of all from her. But this?

“That means a lot to me, Luped,” I said, my throat constricted with emotion.

She looked at my seedling equipment and the other crates I had only partially emptied, a slight frown marring her forehead.

“Andturians didn’t use to have currency,” she explained. “We still don’t. Before the arrival of the off-worlders, we used to trade for goods with the other species. We mostly offered decorative items, weapons, and medicine crafted according to our ancestral methods. Our base materials were the bones, horns, fur, and organs of the creatures we fed from and of course, stone, wood, and metal. But everything has changed with the tourist resorts.”

“The demand has increased beyond your capacity?” I asked.

“No, it has disappeared,” Luped said bitterly. “Their industrial replicas have hurt our business. Why wait for the monthly market and pay full price for our goods when they can get them instantly for cheaper in one of the spaceport or resort stores? The quality they get is terrible, but visually, it is disturbingly similar. And those corporations can build dozens of replicas in the time it takes us to build a single one.”

My heart ached for the Andturians. These were common questionable practices whenever galactic corporations managed to set foot on underdeveloped planets.

“There are legal recourses you can take against that. The United Planets Organization has strict rules against such things,” I argued.

“Yes, but the complexity of the complaint system is almost impossible to navigate,” Luped countered. “And the other native species do not suffer the same way from these practices. Therefore, it makes our case harder to defend.”

“I see,” I said with a frown, determined to look further into this.

“And now, with animals running scarce, our sales prices have to be even higher, which makes us even less competitive,” Luped said. “It is disheartening. I wouldn’t care if that simply meant our people going back to being isolated from strangers. But if this keeps on, we will be starving. All the pressure currently rests on my brother’s shoulders as the Spear of the Andturians. Every clan looks to him. And the Conglomerate making offers to buy our lands are making matters worse. If the next couple of hunts and public market sales aren’t successful, I fear some of the neighboring clans will give in. It will destroy my people.”

I felt blood drain from my face. I had known the situation to be difficult, but not this dire.

“Tell me, Susan,” Luped said, eyeing me with a strange expression, her head tilted to the side, “why did you come here despite Kayog telling you of our hardships?”

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