Page 45 of Her Alien Delegate
"Wait," I squeaked, reaching for him.
The most common assessment of that story would be the same as the people who called him the Mad King of AsunGor. That he was crazy enough to destroy himself just to make sure no one else would attempt doing it themselves. A proof of action that told everyone that there was nothing they could do to break him.
What about the fact that he was forced to duel his brother against his will? What if he was destroying himself as an attempt to leave a position that he had no intention of having? Only for it to fail, and be stuck leading his planet, anyway.
Which one were you, Broma of AsunGor?
"Why did you do it?" I finally asked.
He didn't turn to face me.
"My brother Brakaun has stated his desire to profit with pushing our agreements with outlaws that would bring with it risks I wasn't supportive of for the future of AsunGor, which included the acquisition of humans as breeding stock instead of mating with them."
Another deep voice cleared their throat to get my attention before adding, "Brakaun is not a bad unGor, but he is too inexperienced to know the consequences of his ideas."
Another male said, "His weapon was dipped in poison and if Broma hadn't redirected it... it could have permanently damaged his ormete because Brakaun wouldn't have given up the source so quickly to save himself."
"Poisoned?" I gasped. He used a poisoned blade on his brother and himself?
"Brakaun didn't want to risk Broma being able to take commission from him. Poisoning his ormete would destroy any chance of properly mating or being seen as a strong leader."
"But he didn't want it!" I defended like I knew Broma wasn't power hungry, just from a few meetings and conversations.
"Youth does not always know what it needs," the large unGor sitting at a table of what I now noticed was a very lavishly large suite said. One eye was slashed and milky, with a harsh scar.
"That is Commissioner Pheyal," Broma introduced. "His eye was lost when he killed a slaver keeping unGors in a milking farm to sell our seed for blue market fertility treatments. He set up voluntary farms on the planet for donations to trade thetreatments ourselves. And over there is Vaquel; his ormete have been gifted with adornments from the patients whose lives he's saved."
"Gifted? You make it sound like I have not earned them," he grumbled.
"He prefers the term trophies of life, as one would call your trophies ones earned in death," Pheyal added casually about bones and metal braided through their hair. Ormete, I corrected myself. There were several strands thin enough to be considered similar to human hair, but I remembered how Broma described it as those many hairs bonding together to form the larger tentacles that hid braided underneath.
"And what would yours be called, then?" Broma asked, while selecting food options from the dispensary. "Did you sneak some fresh har fruit in your robes?" He asked Vaquel, the atmosphere of the room lighter than it had been moments before. There was an easy comfort between the unGor, and my presence didn't seem to disrupt that.
"Of course I did," Vaquel said with excitement as he lifted his robes to show a few large pockets bulging with a strange oval shaped rock spotted with blue. "They aren't as fun to eat when they ripen too much, though," he said while inspecting the speckled coloring.
"It seems the oils have leaked from the sacks to spot them," Pheyal agreed. "You were not careful in their transport."
"Of course not, they were in my pockets, bouncing about!" Vaquel defended like he shouldn't be held responsible for the "bruising" of the fruit, if that was what they were talking about?Bruising usually made a fruit soft, but it wouldn't make it bad to eat, I thought.
"It will still be sweet, and the smell is mostly a defense mechanism to prevent animals from eating it before the seeds have formed."
"The seeds are not digestible," Vaquel warned, giving me a shake of his head like I was a child, but to them I might as well be, since I didn't know much about their planet or their food. "But they are useful in poultice for healing when you break open the husk for the oil inside."
"I wonder how someone discovered that?" I accidentally said out loud.
Vaquel smiled and motioned for me to follow him to the table where Pheyal sat, and Broma was bringing a tray of food. He used a clawed thumb nail to cut the hard flesh of the fruit, then peeled it back carefully to expose the creamy fibers with blue veins. A pungent smell wafted up from the fruit and I wrinkled my nose. The whole table chuckled at my reaction.
"It is an unpleasant smell, but it is temporary. Wait a moment," Broma said while mimed holding the fruit to smell it.
"I'm not putting my nose in that," I objected.
Vaquel pushed a finger into the soft fruit and rubbed it before lifting it to my nose. I balked and jerked back, but he was faster and rubbed the juice under my nose. To my surprise, it was not foul smelling at all.
"The smell is foul because the juice sack has broken, but the juice is sweet, and when it's combined with the flesh, the smell neutralizes. It's most pungent when it's still absorbing into the flesh, but the enzymes in the flesh create a soft, but distinct smell similar to the tree it comes from."
"Woodsy?" I said and picked up the fruit.
"It's why when they get ripe like this, then we blend the fruit. But when blending, if any seeds have formed, they are harder than the skin and do not mix." Vaquel seemed pleased to see my interest in knowing more.
