“Adelaid,” The young woman flipped her book cosed, hiding away the fantastic formulae and clever concoctions. She brushed her loose bangs behind her sharp ears and flicked her fingers. The bushes ahead of her parted with the minor spell she cast. It cut straight to the riverbank. Her knife bounced on her hip, and she pulled her skirt tight over her legs. She waved to her little brother as she passed under bent bough. “How’s the fishing going?”

The bushes opened up to the wide river her brother liked to fish in. The riverbanks in this part were gentle, sloping down into the water. Long ago a few earth-working magicians had come through and developed it. They dredged big boulders and shaped them into a wall large enough to keep out the larger river predators. Her brother fished with a net, throwing it into the rushing water. He dragged it out with both hands and emptied it on a wet canvas. The fish struggled against their captivity. “Just fine, sis. Gonna get us enough for breakfast.”

He picked over his catch like a heron, barefooted. When he saw a fish he didn’t like, whether it was too small or misshapen, he squatted and threw it back. The flat ones soared and their scales glittered. The thick ones flew more awkwardly. One smacked against a stone from an odd throw, flailing back into the water. It splashed down. “You should be more careful, you broke that one’s neck.”

“Sis! It’s a fish! It isn’t going to suffer.” The young boy stood and looked at her, then looked to the dozens of fish he’d ended up with. Adelaid tidied up his equipment. Today constituted a day of rest where none should work… but he had a fixation on fishing, and Father Freidrich had said that if he found joy in it, it wasn’t work. Still, it perplexed her how he threw himself into his fishing. The boy acted as if there were no higher calling. He divided the fish into two bags and pulled his net from the stones, the boy sopping wet and grinning ear to ear.

“Oh, the fish? I’m not worried about it.” She pointed over his shoulder, where he looked. A geyser burst beyond the stones, the gaping maw of a salamander snapping up. It consumed the fish that Adelaid discarded. It slammed its body against the stone, its thick limbs scrabbling the rocks before it fell back down. The river water roiled and burst with steam, jets of fire escaping the thing's lips. They were soon to spawn young, and the salamanders tended to get feisty in this season. “I’m worried about that!”

“A salamander?” Adelaid rolled his eyes. “The stones hold them off.”

“You’ve seen them shift. Those salamanders aren’t the smartest but they are stubborn.” She made a circling motion. “If one catches wind of all that fish, it will tear into your haul, and we won’t have any breakfast. In fact, you and you fish will be salamander meal.”

He pursed his lips and patted the dagger on his hip. “I can take one.”

Without a moment’s hesitation she flicked a bit of his hair up with her magic. All it took was a gust of wind and the boy’s long locks flew into a tizzy. “If it doesn’t make a snack out of you, papa will tan your hide instead. Come on, let’s get back to the house. We've been out long enough.”

“Well, I caught plenty for breakfast and dinner!” He threw his head back and laughed, fixing his hair by throwing his head around like a wet dog. A few drops spattered on Alex. “You done reading through that book? Which one is it, the lovey-dovey one or the one full of potions?”

“Hush. I’ll feed you to the salamanders myself if you keep on talking like that.” She teased her little brother, conjuring up a floating disk. Her brother set the larger bag of fish on it, the coalesced magic easily holding it. Alex raised her other hand and split the woods again. “Hey, if you wake me up early enough, I’ll do the fishing, and you can do some reading.”

Adelaid snorted. “I like fishin’ more.”

“Sure you do.” She shrugged and pulled the both of them through the woods. The fish floated by, held aloft by her magical talent. Alexandra knew her abilities. She had a specialty for magic, and prided herself on her talent. The fishing spot sat a mile up the road, and the two began their walk back home. They strode over the packed dirt, passing close by the river bank. More stones driven up by earthen mages created small ponds.

They passed by a few of their neighbors, young girls around Adelaid’s age. Alexandra remembered showing them minor legerdemain with magic. They sat on the smaller ponds that were cut off from the river's low waters, safeguarded by the stones. Alex looked at them and smiled, grasping her brother’s hand. One of the girls she recognized, with a glittering blue brooch on her dress. “Hey, that’s Ophelia, the girl you like! You know… I can carry all this back home for you, if you wanted to spend some time with her”

The young boy grimaced. “Uh, why’d I wanna spend time with her?”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Because she’s-” The woman looked over and lowered her voice. “-got a very friendly nature to her!”

He didn’t quite seem to make the connection in his head, but he turned away. Alex caught the young girl, red-headed and round-eared, glancing over. She smiled and cast a pebble in the river, waving to the two higher up. Adelaid gave her a polite wave back, and readjusted the basket of fish he carried. “If she liked fishing…”

“I’m sure she would, if you showed her how to fish.” They passed by, the young girls disappearing behind the low brush. “You’ve got such a fixation on it.”

“But girls don’t.” He huffed. “And if girls don’t like fishin’, then I’m not sure why I’d wanna be with those girls.”

“There is more to life than pulling fish out of a pond.” She shook her head. “And living in a little town like ours, you know.”

Adelaid stuck his tongue out. “Why’re you the one tellin’ me to find someone, you’re still not married y-”

A fish flew threw the air, carried aloft solely by Alexandra’s will. It arced through the air and smacked firmly against the back of the boy’s head. He recoiled and gave her a dirty look. She scowled and watched him wither in embarrassment. “You know what that was for.”

The boy grunted and looked to the creek. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, before he turned back and gave the wryest of little grins. “I guess I’ll see a giant float down the creek before I see you in a wedding dress.”

“I’ll use you as salamander bait for the next feast if you say stuff like that.” Alexandra shook her head and returned the fish she floated back to the basket.

"You always say you're gonna use someone as salamander bait, you don't even fish!"

"Hush, or I'll smack you again." Alex heard the faint laughs of Ophelia and her friend at the remarks.

The two went off in silence after that, Adelaid and Alexandra hauling the catch between them. They came to a bend in the path that took them closer to the river. This close to town the earthen barrier rose higher and tighter together. A grand mound of earth rose from the road to the top of the barrier, allowing anyone to see over it. It being the dry season, the water didn’t come up too high. At the foot of the barrier there was a rich, fine silt with a dark color like the riverbed.

“Ah, dammit!” The coarse voice of a man screamed. Alexandra jumped out of her skin, Adelaid swiveled his head and looked for the source. They heard splashing and thrashing from the river. “You damned woman! Where the hell did you put me?”

The siblings dropped their fish and dashed up the slope. They stopped at the top and looked out in the brook. The long, low, wide river wasn’t dangerous so to speak, but this time of year meant the salamanders were out in full. The big, slimy beasts would make short work of any poor soul caught in the river. As they watched they saw a fellow with pale skin struggle with the fast water. He held a thick book above his head with one hand and blindly grasped with the other. He turned his head to the sky and screamed profanity to the heavens. He had dark hair cut in a foreign style and wide, sturdy shoulders. Thick muscle covered his back, his skin dripping with river water.

“Is that a giant?” Adelaid grasped his sister’s shoulder. Even from their elevated position they could see he stood quite tall, the water barely coming to his waist. It splashed around him, the man standing proud of the river. Even though it was low, it still flowed strong, and Alex knew both she and her brother would've been washed away easily.

“He looks pretty big.” Alex remembered descriptions of giants from her books. They were lumpy, misshapen things. They had thick brows and skin like rocks. This man was even in form and almost smooth. “But he doesn’t look like a giant...”

“God damn you woman, I wasn’t done readin’ this!” He shook the book above his head, still shouting towards nobody- least, nobody that Alex and Adelaid could see. “I’m soakin’ wet and you think this is funny, don’t you, dammit, damn you, I coulda busted my head up on one of these rocks! You tricked me! I told you I wasn't ready!”

“He’s too wordy to be a giant.” Alexandra whispered to her brother, as they knelt down to hide themselves from view. He seemed to have a ferocious temperament, she half-expected steam from his ears and fire from his nose. All that thrashing, though, sure did get their attention. “But he sure seems mad about something.”

“What does he have to be mad about?” Adelaid quirked an eyebrow up. “Did he piss off a sorceress or something?”

“Language!” She thumped her brother on the back. Perhaps she spoke a little too loudly.

The giant man whipped around, shoulders hunched and face contorted in a sneer. He threw the book with a ferocious yell, the thick cords of muscle on his arm tensing then releasing. The tome sailed over the heads of the two siblings, where it hammered a tree, then fell. He stamped in the water and screamed like a beast into the air. “Why’d ya dump my ass in the river! I'm soakin' wet, you got my nice boots wet! I paid how much money for these, these, these ain't goddamned galoshes! I swear if I had you here I'd soak your head in this river till all that mascara of yours ran!”

“That must be a giant!” Adelaid gasped, throwing himself down on the dyke to hide himself. “He sure talks like one!”

Alexandra blinked and threw herself down by her brother as well. The grass tickled her belly. She went about trying to make herself look very small. Giants were… certainly bothersome. She thought about the giants she’d seen in passing, on the pilgrimage they took every few years. The lumpy, broad folk of the mountains had stoic temperaments and coarse tongues. He looked like a facsimile of one, sure, but he was far too fluid. Giants rolled like stones and rumbled something fierce, he twitched and yelled a coarse bestial cry.

“I never shoulda taken that deal!” His head swiveled and looked around, panting, catching his breath, before he locked eyes with Alex.

Her spine went straight, she stared him right in his eyes. He had a flushed red face, with a thick nose and thin eyes. He had a short, unshaven beard, akin to a dwarf's. Rough hairs covered his jaw. His eyes were large and round, with pits of black and brown ringed by whites. Now that she saw him standing still, she noticed his ears were short and dull. That anger and primal fury washed away in a moment, replaced first by indignation, then by a deep sort of embarrassment. He seemed to think himself alone in the river, nobody a guest to his display of raw emotion.

“What in the name of the-” Alexandra coughed and cleared her throat and spoke the first thing to come to mind, “-are you well, sir? You seem quite mad!”

That took him for something, as bewilderment crossed him. It was a special look on his face, like he’d just been enlightened to a new fact. The man looked down and then back up, falling over backwards. She felt a pang of guilt as she watched him slip on a rock and splash in the water. His head went under, and he scrambled, climbing on top of a rock and gasping for breath. Once he caught himself, he looked at them again and let out the raucous laugh of someone finding mirth in their own foolish actions.  “Well, I'm not doing very well, no, I really ain't! How about y’all? Y'all doing well?”

She looked to Adelaid, unsure of how to respond. He held a finger to his temple and gave a motion of his shoulders. Alex took a breath. “We’re doing quite well! We were just walking home when we heard you yelling. You should get out of that water, mister.”

“Really now?” He climbed atop a stone on unsteady legs and looked around. From the dyke the two siblings could see the dark shapes of salamanders under the water. While they were less active during the day, it still wasn’t very wise to go splashing in the water where they could be provoked. The spawning grounds were further up stream, but who knew what went on under the River Brook? “Why’s that?”

“Oh, salamanders.” Adelaid said, matter-of-factly. “They're quite mean this time of year, you could be eaten by one.”

The man let out another loud laugh, coming from his belly. He cut it off with a snort of incredulity, not believing the words that met his ears. “Cooked by a slimy lil’ salamander? What, do I look like a prime cut of Angus beef ta’ you?”

Alexandra didn’t know what an Angus was, she figured it for a foreign breed of cow. She looked behind the man and saw a big lump push through the river water. It looked to be one of the riverbed creatures, the stump-legged and fiery beasts that lived beneath the rapids. “No, you look like you’re about to be salamander food! Come out of there!”

He looked down to his side and saw the creature crest the surface. The big pan-shaped head of it brushed against his thigh. With tiny bead eyes and a thin line of a jaw, steam billowed from its pores. Thick legs scrabbled over slick stones. Its skin dried rapidly as it crossed to a new spot to bask, uncaring and oblivious to the strange man beside it.

It looked like a mere juvenile. “Oh, y’all’re talkin’ about these?” He looked in wonderment towards the fire-breather, reaching one of his arms down. He grabbed the creature around its midsection and lifted it up to get a better look at it. “A sally-mander? Oooh little salamander. Oh c’mon, this lil fella looks harmless! He cain’t eat me!”

“That’s just a baby salamander!” Adelaid exclaimed. Alexandra balked and covered her mouth in shock at his brazen handling of the thing. “They grow as big as a man!”

“Oh that’s nonsense!” The creature scrabbled and made strange noises, attempting to escape. Its thick little legs waved in the air and its tail whipped, slapping the man’s side. He chuckled in bizarre amusement “What a cute critter! Oh I heard there were funny critters here!”

Alex shook her head. “Put that thing down, it’s dangerous! It will set you aflame!”

For all his bizarre antics, she should’ve known he’d laugh. Everything about him seemed mad and incoherent, from his speech to his dress. Of course he’d play with dangerous animals. “Fire-breathing, ya say that? So he’s like a dragon?” He put on another strange accent, just as crude as his first, “Oi’ crikey, she’s a beaut’! Oh that one'll cook ya right there, yeah, feisty.”

“Dragons live in mountains, salamanders live in rivers.” Alex corrected him. She watched him wave his fat fingers in the line of the salamander’s maw. The flailing grew more agitated, and soon she watched the sheen evaporate completely off its mottled hide. “But they’ll both cook you and eat you! Quit toying with that thing! Put it down, it will burn you!”

“Salamanders don’t-” Fwoosh! A great burst of flame escaped the serpentine creature’s lips. It came in a perfect stream, covering the man’s other forearm. He howled in pain and surprise, suddenly rotating in a blur. He turned and flung the salamander with all the might he could muster. Alex and Adelaid watched in amazement as the flailing, clumsy creature soared just like its grander cousins. Head over tail, it finally splashed down further down the river, out of sight of all of them. “-Oh! Dammit! Sonuva- it burnt me!”

The two siblings looked between themselves. They soon turned to debate. 

“Should we help him?” Adelaid nudged his sister. “He’s obviously a bit… strange in the head.”

Alexandra pursed her lips. “He's a little odd, but he isn’t a giant, and he isn’t a chimera…”

The younger brother pointed over his back towards where the book landed. “Do you think he’s just confused? I think he’s under a spell! Nobody just grabs a salamander and plays with it!”

“Well I think he’s just confused,” she looked back and saw the book, where had landed miraculously intact upon the roots of a tree, “but if he is under a spell, I’m sure Father Freidrich would help him. But he surely isn’t going to last long in that water.”

They heard more splashing in the water, and soon turned their eyes back to the strange man. He clumsily navigated the wet stones and rough water, clutching to rocks with his good hand and keeping his other gingerly raised. Water soaked into whatever little portion of his clothes that weren’t already sopping wet. His thick hair came down in a wet sheet, and he yelled curses at his burn, the brook and the beasts around him.

It seemed the fire had set off some kind of frenzy in the salamanders, as they watched fire burst above the surface of the water. Mixes of steam and flame bubbled and boiled the river. The man-sized salamanders scrabbled, thinking they had new food. He must have stuck his foot in a mess of them, as they watched multiple scramble after him with wild abandon. The man narrowly navigated slick stones and rough waters, making an admirable pace towards the dyke.

“He’s still coming right towards us,” Adelaid stood up, grabbing a fallen branch. It was a thick knobby piece of wood off an oak tree, and they held it down the dyke so the man could grasp it as he came. “The dyke is too high ta’ climb, we’re gonna have to drag him up!”

“Well, then we’ll help him up!” Alexandra stood up and waved, grabbing the branch alongside her brother and waving it down. “Hey, mister! Get up here before you’re salamander meal! Grab the branch! We'll pull you up!”

“I’m trying!” He yelped, hardly focused ahead of him. Soon he came to the tall stone dyke, soaked wet and his clothes stained in mud. “Allez hop!”

As soon as he saw the branch it seemed his focus snapped on it, and he grasped it with one of his big hands. His strange boots scrubbed the dirty dyke wall. It took all of Alexandra’s and Adelaid’s strength to dig their feet in and brace. The man must have weighed as much as a donkey. The siblings pulled with all their might and watched the man scrabble at the side of the dyke. He threw water around with every frantic motion, his wounded arm sizzling with steam, odd yells coming from his mouth. He practically flew up the side of the embankment.

In fact he came so fast and so harshly up the stones that he caught both the siblings in his panicked lunge. They rolled into a mess of flailing limbs and wet clothes back down the dyke. She heard the exasperations of the salamanders, the creatures turning against each other. They barely had time to get untangled before the man went to swearing again. Alex hissed, her own pain springing up from the tumble they took. She'd been unlucky enough to end up at the bottom of a pile of men, the crushing weight of the stranger across her middle and her brother sprawled across her legs.

The momentary excitement over, she groaned and tried to push herself free.

"You... two... get off of me!" She grunted. It seemed the man recognized something, as he sprung off Alex.