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Crow coughed in surprise and tea went up his nose.
“You timed your phrasing on purpose and waited till he was drinking.”
“If I’m taking a hit to my pride, least I can do is get some fun out of it.”
Crow leaned over against the ground next to the tree he had been sitting with his back against, laughing.
Eris tossed the hunter an empty cloth bag to wipe his face.
They were a twenty minute walk from their camp. The rocks here formed a natural uneven stairway. Eris sat on the step above the one the Drifter was sitting on, slightly to his left. Crow was a few feet away, the red maple tree at his back leaned far over the edge of the rocks and looked like a hand clawing at the lake.
“You… you actually caught him?”
“I did.”
“And then she face-planted me into the dirt."
Crow put his tea mug down on the ground to keep from spilling it as he kept laughing.
"You deserved it."
"I mean yeah I did but I didn't expect to get my ass handed to me quite so thoroughly. I knew those eyes would give ya an advantage, I just under-estimated the extent of advantage it would be. Won’t be makin’ that mistake next time.”
“Hmmm… So you are already planning on being humiliated a second time.” She held her fishing rod in one hand while she sipped her tea. “Very well.”
Crow started laughing again.
“The original plan, which you agreed to, before the surprise bonus round last night, was best two outta three. You ain't actually won-won yet, Three-Eyes. I knew you were good. I figured you’d catch me at least once. Didn’t expect you’d do it so handily though. You sure are scary when you’re mad.”
“You threw me in the lake.”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I did that. I deserved everything I got. I know.”
“It was very cold.”
“I am very much aware of that. I jumped in right after you and stayed wet longer than you, away from the fire. Thanks for that.”
"Hmmm…" Eris smiled smugly over her tea.
"You two are so much fun."
"Ha! Yeah," his voice softened and he gently bumped her knee with his shoulder, "yeah we are."
“So…” Crow smiled. “If I ever need to find the Drifter and can’t locate him…”
“That will not happen that easily for her again. I am already plotting my revenge.”
“Hmmm… So you’ll be seeking… vengeance?” Eris asked, laughing silently. “Against… me?”
Crow spit his tea again.
“I… dammit!”
“I look forward to seeing how this works out for you.” She put down her own tea mug and ran her fingers through his hair.
Crow’s fishing float bobbed on the surface of the lake. He reeled in his line only to find his hook empty and his bait gone. “At this rate I might have better luck diving in there with a knife.”
“I mean,” the Drifter tumbled a flat stone across his knuckles and palmed it. “If we’re going that way, why trust luck? Just use a grenade.” He shook his empty hand and then snapped his fingers. The stone reappeared in his fingers and tumbled across his knuckles again.
“We do not need to murder the entire lake for dinner. You are both just jealous that I have already caught a fish.”
“It is a nice fish, too,” Crow noted.
“Thank you.”
The Drifter stretched his arm out to his side and curled his wrist, holding the stone loosely, his fingers wrapped around its edge. He flicked his hand sideways, splaying out his fingertips and sending the stone skipping across the lake.
All three listened to the splashes.
“Was that nine times?” Eris asked.
“Yup. It was.”
“Hmmm…” She smiled. “Impressive.”
“Crow did eleven once.” Glint appeared from behind the bushes beside Crow.
Eris looked at Glint and then looked over at Crow.
“Once,” he admitted.
“You never believe anything I say,” Glint sulked.
“You have told far too many lies, little ghost,” said Eris, “for anything you say to be believed without question.”
“I don’t lie. I just… sometimes exaggerate and… adjust things for… narrative effect.”
“MmmHmm…” Eris sipped her tea.
“Weren’t you supposed to be finding them snipe tracks I sent ya for?” Drifter asked. “How long you been back?”
“Not long. I just got here as you were skipping the stone.”
“Gotta warn us when ya do that, Sparky, for… uh… safety reasons. I could’a accidentally hit ya with the rock.” The Drifter’s eyes glinted in a manner which indicated that, in different circumstances, it would not have been an accident.
“I’m sure I would have gotten out of the way but… thank you for your concern, Drifter. I’m sorry but I don’t think there are any snipes in this area. Nothing matched the tracks you described.”
“Huh… I guess there aren’t any then.”
Eris smirked. The Drifter had sent Glint off to ‘hunt snipes’ before telling Crow about losing to her at hide and seek. Crow could keep a secret. Glint could not.
Crow cast his newly baited line into the lake.
“Eleven, huh?” Drifter mumbled. “I can do that. Just gotta find the right stone. Hold this for me will, ya, Moondust?” He handed her his fishing rod.
“If I catch something with your rod it counts as mine,” she told him.
“Ugh!” The Drifter made a face. “Fine.” He slipped off silently into the woods.
Crow smiled. “Thank you for inviting me to fish with the two of you. This is fun.”
“Thank you for watching over us.” Eris smiled back. “It’s been very relaxing.”
“Getting thrown in the lake was relaxing?” Glint asked.
“That… has been…” Eris licked her lips. “...dealt with… little one.”
Crow snorted.
“I thought you were going to kill him.” Glint continued, his shell flaps wide. “I was surprised he was still alive when we arrived.”
“He has a ghost.” She smiled sweetly at Glint. “What makes you so sure I didn’t?”
Glint gasped. “So you did kill him.” He drew his shell in close and shuddered.
“Just think of how much worse my wrath might be should someone choose to spread gossip about what I did on my vacation?”
Crow opened his hand. Glint zipped over to hide in it.
“I don’t think you’ll have any problems with that, Eris.” Crow said. “Right Glint?”
Glint nodded and flew up to tuck himself into Crow’s hood, peaking out fearfully at Eris from beside his ear.
“Uh oh. Hold on now. I don’t want any trouble.” The Drifter’s voice came from the woods across the clearing.
Eris dropped the fishing rods and twitched her fingers as she stood. Her orb flew to her hand from the ground nearby.
Crow reached behind himself and pulled out his sniper rifle. He aimed in the direction of the Drifter’s voice, looking down the sights.
There was rustling in the bushes and the sound of branches snapping.
“You don’t have to do this.” Drifter’s voice continued, “We can just go our separate ways and no one needs to get hurt.”
Eris hopped lightly down the rocks to the shore and ran to the clearing, her soulfire sphere in her hand frosting over with stasis.
Crow repositioned to get a better angle and watched the Drifter back out from the treeline, his arms wide. The bushes he was facing rustled back and forth angrily. More twigs snapped.
A loud low growling came from the trees.
Drifter kept slowly walking backwards. “I do not want to get into it with you. You will lose. Back the fuck off. Last warning, asshole.” A coin appeared in his right hand.
A black bear lumbered into the clearing on two legs, making a loud, groaning, low-pitched growl. The Drifter snapped his fingers, igniting the coin in his hand with solar energy. He tossed it in front of the bear’s feet and it erupted in a large ball of fire.
The bear groaned loudly and whimpered, falling down to all four legs.
“Fuck off or I’ll do it again.” Drifter ignited another coin in his hand.
The bear turned and ran back into the woods with a lopsided gallop.
Eris’s orb skittered along the grass like a bowling ball, leaving a trail of ice behind it. It rolled around the patch that the Drifter had ignited, containing it, before looping inward to put out the flames.
The flaming coin in the Drifter’s hand disappeared.
“Thank you for that.” He turned to her with a smile. “Didn’t wanna do that deeper in the woods. Trees might’a caught and this place is too pretty to burn.”
“You could have just frozen it with stasis,” she told him.
“Yeah but that’d hurt ‘im and it ain’t his fault I was sneaking around his turf pickin’ up rocks. Big dumb jackass was just chillin’ at home and I scared ‘im. Probably didn’t hear me comin’ and then freaked out.”
“Did you at least get your rocks?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, because our fishing rods are probably in the lake now.”
“Ugh.”
***
Crow had had the presence of mind to stand on his fishing rod before it slipped into the water. Eris and the Drifter were not so lucky.
“Damn.” The Drifter stared into the dark and placid water.
“I guess that means I win.” Eris said smugly.
Drifter frowned. “I mean, I could go in after them.”
“How would you find them?” she asked.
“I’ve pulled salvage from liquid methane on Titan, Moondust. I can find a couple fishing rods in a lake. It’s just whether or not it’s worth getting cold and wet to do it.”
“I imagine Titan is considerably colder.” She sipped her tea and made a face. It was cold.
“It is. But with cold, there comes a point where the number just don’t matter any more. You remember Europa.”
“I do.” She poured the remnants of her tea out on to the ground.
“Plus for Titan, I got a suit. It’s kit-bashed, of course, but it does its job.”
“Perhaps we just let the fishing rods go then?” she asked.
As they looked out onto the water there was a splash and the Drifter’s ghost jumped several inches out of the water in front of them. It emitted its single tone and blinked its red light. It had fishing line tangled in its shell flaps.
Eris smiled.
The ghost plopped down into the water.
“That jackass is trying to show me up.”
"Trying?" Eris asked the Drifter.
"Hey!"
“Uh... did he dive under or was he pulled under?” Crow asked.
The ghost popped out of the water again, farther away. It was being dragged along the surface. The water rippled out from the ghost’s shell in a V for a few feet before it went under the surface again.
“I think he’s in trouble.” Glint said.
Eris frosted her orb, pulled her hand back and sent it whipping out over the water to where the ghost was last seen.
“I think he’s caught a fish,” she said.
“More like a fish caught him.” Crow added.
Drifter growled. “That dumbass.”
The ghost surfaced again, even farther out on the lake. Eris’s ahamkara bone flitted to it, splashing in the water next to it and freezing a small section of the surface. The ghost was now embedded in ice and being pulled around the lake.
Eris willed her orb to rise up and splash down into the water once more, creating more ice around the ghost, which slowed down the movement of it being dragged around, but did not stop it.
“Are you going to go in and get him or shall I?” she asked.
“Oh for fucks sake. I will.” The Drifter kicked off his boots and removed his socks. He handed Eris his gun and then waded into the lake.
“Shall I go back to camp and build up the fire?” Eris called after him, tucking his hand canon into the belt around her waist.
“Yeah.” He dove under the water and began to swim under the surface toward the ice raft his ghost was embedded in.
Eris tilted her head. “Now that it is daytime and I can see it, he swims very fast.”
“I can’t swim that fast.” Crow said.
“I cannot either.”
The Drifter surfaced halfway to where he was going and then dove back under the water again.
“He also can hold his breath for an impressively long time.” Crow commented.
Eris smirked. “That I already knew.”
Crow coughed uncomfortably.
“You will keep watch over them?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then I shall see you back at camp.”
Eris used her orb to re-freeze the water around the Drifter’s ghost to ensure the raft of ice would not thaw before he arrived, then she summoned the sphere back to her hand, took the bucket containing her fish, hooked her tea mug with her thumb, and disappeared into the woods.