Duck Lake Settling the debts.

Grass rustles and gives way as the girl stands up. Safka braces himself and steps back stiffly, staring back as she blinks. The flirtatious tone was unexpected. He was both parts wary and relieved, and his shoulders sag without him meaning to. Her sentences are short: the stutter of an automatic gun, or the repetitive whine of a cicada. It isn't entirely unpleasant. Safka would be content to sit back and listen to her connect words and phrases together in an infinite serpentine line. "Aura isn't such a bad name either," he says through a smile, though he secretly thinks it rather eccentric.

It was almost like parents naming a child something like Ghost, or Magic. But "Safka" was hardly an ordinary name either. Probably it came from a strange place, where people spoke with a lot of consonants like k and s. "No, I don't have a territory at the mo'. Looking for one, though." He raises an eyebrow at the proper rakish angle as if saying how about you? or maybe (this was more unlikely) there's an eyelash in my eye.