Stealing Free by Deborah Biancotti
Thrice-born Salamander, supple-limbed and edgy, was not at home here. He drummed his dumpling fingertips on the echo-drum of a hollow log, and waited.
"Salamander, you never were good at it," said ample Kingfisher.
The kingfisher arranged jade-tipped, onyx-sheened feathers in the melting sun. He had time to glare at the horizon, then to turn his cold-coal stare to the rushes by the lake's edge, before Salamander even bothered to reply.
"Good at what?"
"Waiting," spat Kingfisher. He spun his head suddenly back to the river, his eye caught by a sinewy ripple.
"Right," said Salamander, craning his neck to follow Kingfisher's gaze into glare-warmed water. He added a mutter beneath his breath.
"What?" Kingfisher, all poor-impulse-control, could never resist the bait.
Salamander shifted, his eyes like the pits of pawpaw. "I said, I can't help trying to see what you see."
"Ha!" said Kingfisher. Then, "Does it hurt?"
Kingfisher seemed long and mean, but wasn't. The ripple was gone, so he twisted back to his pale-skinned companion.
"No, no, no, it never hurts," Salamander whipped his blue-jasper tongue at the air.
"I think you do it on purpose," said Kingfisher.
"Why would I do that?"
"Maybe you're bored."
"I'm bored right now, all right."
"Maybe you like making me go out of my way, fetch and carry for you and bring you back to the river for mending. Picking up your pieces," Kingfisher said, iron in his voice.
"I know you do it out of kindness, and care," Salamander soothed. Kingfisher was his friend, and Salamander understood the duty there. He knew what was owed.
"This is the fourth time you've --"
"-- third --"
"-- that you've grown that leg back, for a start."
"Right. Oh, this leg? No, only the second."
"When's your --"
Fat-lipped Barramundi broke the surface then, unexpectedly close. Kingfisher tried to smooth his surprise, but the rough of feathers at his neck gave it away.
"She'll see you now, Mudpuppy," said Barramundi, and plummeted with a flick of her tail, the silver of her scales like a neon streak.
Kingfisher swung his beak in a slow left-right. He glared balefully at the absence of Barramundi. "Best of luck with --"
But Salamander had already gone, following the fish to the place where the gatekeeper lay.
"-- that."
Salamander was not a mudpuppy.
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