The Barbarian, the Wizardess and an Eighteen-Wheeler

Beautiful monsters

Arizonian desert moved slowly outside the car windows as Max and Chloe drove south. Per the usual, Chloe was the driver and Max rode shotgun, as the trusty navigator, in a similar arrangement as the one that had existed between Captain Bluebeard and Long Max Silver. The horizon was almost completely empty in all directions, with singular cacti and rocks sometimes jutting up from the arid plain. The only other soul sailing on this calm sea was the driver of an eighteen-wheeler truck, which had been following Chloe's pickup for the past hour, staying a kilometre behind.

"You know what, Max? I'm beginning to like our visits to Away more and more. And I don't mean just the time we actually stay there, but even the drive itself. The first time we drove there I hated it, because I had the brilliant idea of doing the entire road in one day. Honestly, me being exhausted from the road was probably half the reason I blew up at David so hard that day".

Max could think of at least one good reason Chloe had had to be angry with David. A slap in the face she had witnessed while hiding in Chloe's closet. But she didn't say anything, because technically it hadn't happened, since she had rewound time and jumped out from between Chloe's clothes to spare her from being slapped and insulted. She hadn't told Chloe about that particular rewind back when it happened and bringing it up almost four years later would serve no purpose.

"You just let it all out Chloe. You told David how you felt and how his 'tough love' had hurt you. Thanks to that you could start anew. Telling exactly how you feel is the most healthy thing to do in nine out of ten situations. It's one of the many things I love about you. You're always wearing your heart on your sleeve. With you, there's no bullshit".

"Max, you always know how to dress things up in words so they sound nice. My big mouth suddenly becomes 'a healthy outlet for emotions'".

"I was being serious, Chloe".

"I know you were. I'm just joking".

For a moment, they were both lost in their thoughts. Max's memory circled back to the wardrobe incident with David. She smiled, thinking how she had come out of the closet for Chloe, both literally and figuratively. With the corner of her eye, Chloe saw her smile.

"Penny for your thoughts, Max. What made you smile?"

Not wanting to darken Chloe's day with bad memories, Max said something that was also the truth: "You're right, Chloe, now that we're pacing ourselves over three days, instead of rushing at break-neck speed, the drive to Away is actually kind of nice. A slow, uneventful road trip".

"Uneventful? Max, don't tempt fate! You know it has a long-standing beef with you, for pulling me and Tristan from its hungry jaws?"

Unexpectedly, they came at a crossroads. The perpendicular road was impossible to see from more than a hundred metres away, due to how flat the terrain was. Surprisingly, there was even a pole with traffic lights affixed to it, which emerged from behind a tall cactus when Max and Chloe drove closer. The traffic lights shone red. It felt absurd to stop in the middle of the desert, before a crossroads with a completely empty road, but Chloe slowed down and brought the car to a halt. Amused, she said: "See, Max? What did I tell you about tempting fate?"

Waiting for the lights to go green, Chloe turned up the radio. Driving to Arizona, they would always listen to AM radio. It was a mixed bag. The music was great, but the politics were horrible. Most of the pundits operating on radio waves, especially the local channels, espoused views that could euphemistically be described as "problematic", but in reality often devolved into outright stochastic terrorism. However, sometimes the talking heads were so insane, they became funny. Especially if they happened to be preachers who would intersperse political agitation with "talking in tongues". Max and Chloe would always laugh out loud hearing some pastor talk in gibberish. They would joke that they were listening to a DnD podcaster in the middle of a campaign, trying to launch a fireball.