Is Annie human? This must be another joke or something. We might be on the same wavelength for other things right now, but her sense of humor is pretty out there. "Yeah, why?" Carl said. Maybe it's like a knock-knock joke type of thing.

Ir'alith seemed confused by his reply, and the glow from her eyes intensified.

I wonder how hard it is to get that eye thing working. It's really cool.

"But," Ir'alith seemed to struggle with herself, "why her?" she demanded, clenching one clawed fist at her side.

He frowned. Why Annie? He leaned back and sat against the hood of the car, then crossed his arms over his chest. She seems pretty upset. Obviously not a joke then, and she's clearly not role-playing. Well, she's got anger issues, so maybe this is just part of that. "Because I love her," he said in a slightly challenging tone.

Carl did not like it when people implied to him in any circumstance that Annie was not everything he had always wanted in a partner.

He wouldn't have given up everything for just anyone.

They stared at each other for a short while.

Ir'alith's eyes abruptly returned to the blue they had been, then became an even frostier, almost navy blue. "I apologize, Carl," she said softly, tilting her head down. Her tail lay limp behind her. "My rudeness has no excuse."

Yup, must be anger issues. At least she's self-aware and seems to be working on it. I can respect that since she made a sincere apology.

"I… I must return," Ir'alith said slowly. She turned and took a step away from him, her tail dragging on the ground behind her. Another portal opened before her.

Ah, shoot, she must be embarrassed. "Hey, no need to leave so fast," Carl called after her. "I mean, unless you need to be somewhere."

She froze, about to step into the portal, and her tail flicked up into the air slightly before falling to the ground once more.

"You, uh…" Carl paused briefly, unsure how to repair the situation that he hadn't caused. An idea occurred to him. "Wanna go for a drive?"

After a moment, Ir'alith turned around again. The portal remained open behind her, leading to a small, dark cave which was only illuminated slightly by the glow of her armor as it leaked through. "A drive?"

Carl patted the hood of the car he was sitting on. "Yeah, this thing can go really fast. You seem a little down, so maybe it'll cheer you up?"

She paused for a short time, then her tail began to sway back and forth a little. "You would still choose to spend time with me despite my outburst?"

She really phrases things oddly. I wonder if it's related to her accent? It's subtle, but I don't think I've ever heard it before. Maybe this isn't her native language. Could explain why she likes to role-play if she was already taught to speak super formally like this. He shrugged, relaxing his posture and placing both hands flat against the car's hood on either side of himself. "We're both adults. Everyone's got their issues; you apologized, and I can respect that you're working on your, uh, anger. Er, sorry if that's a sensitive topic," he added quickly.

Ir'alith's tail flopped slightly, and she resumed staring at the ground again. "I suppose it would have been impossible for one such as you not to take notice," she said, sounding depressed.

Gah, I'm really bad at this. She doesn't seem like she wants to talk about it, and I don't wanna pry. Having friends is harder than I remember. The thought gave him pause. We are friends, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I helped her out, and she just gave me that magic-user skill or whatever and then did that awesome Annie mind-reading illusion thing. That's all pretty friend-y, right?

The thought made him depressed. When was the last time I even talked to any of my friends? We kinda just stopped talking over time, and I was too busy trying to be the best me I could for Annie and the girls to notice. I should try giving Max or Tim a ring sometime. Wonder how they're even doing. Or Alec. Wasn't he like, running for office the last time I talked to him?

But I've sort of got some in-game friends now. Mina's… That's maybe a little different than friends? I'll think on that when she logs on. Ir'alith is a bit weird, but she's been pretty nice and helpful overall. And she did say she wanted to be friends.

Friends. Yeah, I can do this. Deep breath. "Don't worry about it," Carl said, like a friend would say. "We're friends, right?" He patted the car again and got up. "C'mon, take a break for a little while. I promise this'll raise your spirits," he said, reusing her earlier phrase in an attempt to start the process.

Ir'alith looked up, her eyebrows raised in a hopeful expression. "Truly?"

Carl turned around and started walking back towards the driver's seat, waving her towards the other side.

His plan was going great until he reached the seat and realized that he had once again failed to consider the important details.

He was still stroking his beard and staring at Mina's corpse when Ir'alith reached the passenger seat. "I didn't think about that," he muttered.

Ir'alith pointed to the rear of the car behind the seats. "I will stand there?"

Carl frowned. "That'd be awfully unsafe…"

"My balance is sufficient," she huffed, seeming to take his statement as a slight.

"No," Carl said, "I mean, we're gonna be going really fast, so you'd just get knocked off by the wind."

She flicked a finger in his direction, and a gust of wind blew past his face. "Concern yourself not with wind on my behalf, Carl," she said, showing a playful smile that contained lots of very pointy teeth.

"Good point," Carl said. Getting used to all this magic stuff is tough.

"I can anchor the body to the car with magic if it would be helpful?" Ir'alith asked, gesturing to the headless corpse in the passenger seat.

"Yeah, that'd be great, actually," Carl said. Getting a little tired of worrying about it flying out… "Can you do the same for me?"

Stolen novel; please report.

"Yes?" Ir'alith said, as though it should have been obvious.

Carl grinned. "Perfect. Not having seatbelts made it a lot harder to really put this thing through its paces." He climbed into the driver's seat.

"A moment," Ir'alith said.

He looked over in time to see her close her eyes and touch her tail to the side of the car—where the freaking mirror should be, Carl now realized.

Then the car began to glow.

"Uh, what's this?" Carl asked.

The glow ended after a few seconds.

"I inscribed proper glyphs of durability to overwrite the poor quality ones which were present," Ir'alith said, opening her eyes. "It seemed unlikely to bear my weight as it was."

"Oh." Hope Mina doesn't mind that her car's getting upgraded while she's offline.

Ir'alith hopped, landing heavily behind Carl in a crouch and causing the car to sink down a noticeable amount.

What the heck, the car doesn't sink nearly this much when I get in. How much does that armor weigh?

The car bounced a little, and Ir'alith made a noise of displeasure. "This will suffice for the present, but it would not bear the weight of my axe."

"Er, you're just gonna leave it here?" Carl asked, looking out in the direction it had landed, seeing only the area just beneath the light-radiating helmet in the relative darkness of the night. He turned around the other way, craning his head to look up at Ir'alith who was standing with her large, clawed feet roughly shoulder width apart behind him.

"No," she said, shaking her head.

The car abruptly rose up the amount it had sunk when she jumped on.

She held her hand out, and her axe appeared in it, leaning perfectly over one shoulder, and her helmet floated over to rest between her feet. "I have made myself weightless. When you are prepared, I will enact the anchoring."

Huh. Starting to kinda feel like magic makes all Mina's cool steampunk engineering work obsolete. Carl turned around and placed his hands on the wheel. Let's see… Just have to magic this thing on like I'm turning a key or something. He focused and started to use magic.

Then he realized another important detail he'd overlooked.

Alright, this is harder than I thought. Just shooting some fire or water out of my hand is pretty easy, but trying to get it to go into the right place and keep going while I'm doing something else—like driving—is really hard. How the heck was Mina doing this? It's like trying to play a piano and ride a bike at the same time. And I don't know how to play a piano.

"Hey, uh, Ir'alith?"

"Yes, Carl?"

He turned around to look up again, then realized he could just tilt his head all the way back in his seat. "It's taking me some time to get used to using magic. Mina did this thing earlier where she said she…" Carl tried to remember what she'd done. "Something about sucking fire energy into the wheel here," he patted the steering wheel, "and having it travel down the shaft towards the engine compartment so it can generate steam pressure with the heat."

Ir'alith leaned to her right, apparently trying to get a better look at it.

"Oh, she also said it used most of her mana to do it," Carl added, "and that lasted…maybe six or seven hours?"

Ir'alith gave him a lopsided grin. "Ah," was all she said. Her tail snaked down along his right arm in a light caress, then wrapped around his hand on the wheel. It retreated a moment later, and she turned her head to the side, taking it out of view behind the dragon head on the chest part of her armor.

Carl wasn't about to try and describe exactly what kind of armor it was. He knew his limits.

Her tail is a lot softer than I expected. Feels kinda like velvet. The thoughts again reminded him of his wife's extremely brief foray into tail-wearing the Friday prior, despite his best efforts. That tail wasn't as soft though. Or as warm.

He blinked, bringing his thoughts back into focus. "What, uh… What'd you do?"

"I created a similar effect," Ir'alith said, at last turning back to look down at him. "It will last longer."

"How much longer?" Carl asked out of curiosity.

"Perhaps a year."

Carl blinked again. "That's…a long time."

"It was no great effort," she said offhandedly.

Starting to get a feeling like maybe she's way better at magic than Mina. "Well, thanks anyway," Carl said. "Ready to go?"

"I am."

Carl felt an invisible weight settle onto him, dragging him more fully onto the seat and preventing him from shifting off of it. Now we're talking. He gripped the wheel, then pressed the steam pedal a little in order to—

The car shot forward past the spot where the portals had been, moving at a speed that he knew should have required him to press the pedal roughly halfway down.

He'd only pressed it slightly, however.

"This is not fast," Ir'alith called down to him.

Carl grinned. Now that I've got a seatbelt… He turned a little experimentally, looking to the side.

Mina's body remained pinned to its part of the seat.

"Hang on," Carl shouted, steadily depressing the pedal more and more.

When he reached the halfway point, he felt that they were already moving faster than the car could previously drive when he floored it. Also, much to his enjoyment, there was no longer any wind, so he was able to drive without squinting.

The next problem was obvious.

Carl slowed the car down. Gotta get another one of those nightvision potions going; I can't see a freaking thing. "One sec," he called.

"That was somewhat fast," Ir'alith said.

How the heck fast is she used to moving? It's not legal to drive anywhere near that speed. "Inventory," Carl murmured. He flipped to his giant page of potions and grabbed one of the glowing black bottles. "Can you see okay?" he asked.

"I can," she acknowledged. "Is the car functioning as you expect?"

She must mean the spell she used. "Yup, better than ever. Thanks!" He pulled off the top and guzzled the grape medicine-y-tasting liquid, then chucked the bottle back into his inventory and dismissed it.

The world snapped into view.

Now that I think of it, this is like, some kinda… Yeah, reminds me of that time Annie and I went to Australia and took that little tour of the Outback. "Alright, this is the real thing," he called up, pressing the steam pedal again.

Carl continued to press down smoothly, sending the car rocketing off along the road.

"This is fast!" Ir'alith shouted when the pedal was roughly three quarters of the way down.

He grinned, then floored it.

The car was now going much faster than he had ever driven. It was a struggle to even remain on the road, and he bounced up off the side of it a number of times and had to swerve back on.

Then he thought about it. The car was certainly durable enough, so he began to drive randomly, following along in the same direction that the road was headed while enjoying his ability to turn small bumps in the terrain into ramps that sent the car flying into the air for long distances.

A loud roar sounded from just behind him, but he was unable to look back while retaining some semblance of control over the vehicle.

After a short while, Carl saw it.

Ahead of them was a mound. It was relatively small, but at the rate they were traveling…