found herself in walkers' Quartzal far more than she liked, squatting in the stench of the dirt while walkers trudged back and forth, mushing their grubby heels or else creaking along in carriages crusted with Quartzal mud, which was famously iridescent and for that reason was not as thoroughly washed off as other hues of mud.

Still, it was a little bit better than being up in the skies at this time of the year. It was just the sort of day that was both bright and sprinkly with warm rain, the time when much younger passerine than she would launch themselves through the showers and clouds to veil themselves in beads of glistening moisture. The traffic in the skies about Quartzal was horrendous, but because passerine romance was not necessarily a holiday, administration did not see completely fit to oversee detours in advance, and so everyone was always scrambling off to somewhere else in lateness, covered in damp down feathers and decidedly less innocent than they had been hours prior.

Though Skaffwory usually recognized her offspring when she happened to run into them, and remembered the fathers and members of each of her clutches, she didn't necessarily keep up with anyone, and had grown a little tired of the whole affair, and hadn't done the whole water-droplet-veiling thing for at least two years. She had wondered at the waning of her own desire for mothering and had thought that maybe, finally, her age had quenched it. But, recently --

In fact, there he was now, the buzzard. Skaffwory's feathers fluffed as he approached. It was easy to avoid such folk in the sky -- her skills far outweighed any other there -- but here on the ground, and especially within the limits of her rental space, she couldn't do much from this frequent, annoying visitor but tilt her head to the side with scrutiny and say, gruffly, "And what is it that you want today?"

The passerine said nothing, only eyed her very seriously and held out a basket. Skaffwory blinked at him and for a moment did nothing, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she stretched out and took the handle of the basket with her beak, flipped it off and to the side. The basket was filled with clumps of silvery-white, crystalline material.

Skaffwory snorted.

"Little one," she said, for the passerine really was quite young, if a buzzard in his tenacity, "I have received gifts of gold and pliant wool beaded with power, tame dentsa and the eyes of dragons, and you seek to woo me with mere rocks?"

The passerine's feathers ruffled with offense that he -- she granted him this much -- was good enough not to verbalize, except to say, "Sk-kaffwory-lady, I am not little, I am an adult, and I love you."

"You are a child. Your feathers are hardly out of the first molt." She plucked one out of his head just to prove it and he winced, slightly. "You can hardly speak without your beak clacking between each word."

She exaggerated. He was young -- compared to her. She was suspicious of what his true intentions were. There were some who tried to bait her for her rapport with salamanders, and she did not want to risk either her life or the rest of Quartzal's by somehow angering the fickle things.

Indeed, his eyes flicked down to the salamanders, and Skaffwory hissed at him.

"Be off with you, you buzzard, do not anger me or you will burn to a crisp!"

"No Skaffwory, only look!" He set the basket down beside another one, and the salamanders immediately perked up with interest. The salamanders she soothed were usually very calm and jaded, and so Skaffwory herself became interested as well; unblinking, she watched as a couple salamanders slid over from their basket and amidst the silvery rocks, and immediately the basket began to emit sparks, a vibrant and loud glitter which made all the rest of the marketplace turn about in shock, which made her realize how soft and frantic the pounding of her own heart was, which made even the constant, protective illumination of the opalite wires seem dark.

The crackling and shining persisted, the salamanders writhing in a certain sort of cheer, and despite herself Skaffwory found herself quite impressed. It was the first time that someone had appealed to some aspect of hers specifically. Anyone would be pleased with gold or pliant wool of the highest grade, but there was only one passerine who dared nearing salamanders.

"The whole marketplace is looking," she said, and took the lid of the basket with her beak and set it back on, containing the glitter, though the basket continued to shine from the inside, and light dripped with sharpness from some cracks in the basket. She looked at it with pleasure and used her smile to comb out feathers whose filaments had become disengaged from the rest.

The passerine was looking on at her nervously. She nibbled at down and told him, "Meet me again when the market hours end."

His beak clipped and clacked with pleasure; he nodded at her, crest feathers all risen and ruffled, and flew off.

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