Chief looked up at cowboy me, the girl, Baba and someone who was just walking in the same direction as them with no intention or objective to stay in group for longer than their paths would coincidentally be crossing.

As the tree person turned left and went about their business, probably something to do with the festival, the girl took charge of the situation and started to speak.

We lost him. He took the hoppy ball out of this guy’s hands, opened up a portal hole and disappeared, god knows where, and now I’m stuck with these two idiots in this stupid world and I don’t really think that badly about anything or anyone here but I’m kind of tired and done with all this shit and I miss him somehow and you’re the only person that I think could help us out here and now I would really like you three to do whatever magic ritual’s required to find this guy and bring him back and in the mean time I’d really love a comfy place to sit and a little sip of snake wine.

First off, Chief started to reply, having not lost an ounce of patience since we last met him, looking at the girl with soothing eyes that seemed to have understood everything she was going to say before she even started to speak, calming her nerves and making her believe everything was going to be all right before the slightest sound came out of his mouth, the device you’re referring to is called a hopper.

I don’t care.

I know you don’t.

She calmed down even more.

Secondly there is no god, at least not in the limited and frankly primal way you earthlings like to think about it, or Him as you like to say.

Please get to the point.

I’m sorry, he said.

She felt the tension leave her system. Somehow his pacifist aggression was exactly the right mix of conflict and simultaneous conflict avoidance that worked really well for her to let off steam without exploding.

If your man is still alive -

He’s not my man.

Please listen now, our little dance is over.

Okay.

If he’s still alive then he could be in an infinite amount of different places, all over the infinite amount of endless universes, but I’m not really too worried about this. The bigger problems come not from where he is but how.

Explain. The girl said, having returned to her former state of collected coolness with just the right amount of sensuous apathy. At least that’s how I always viewed her and I just know my cowboy twin version was feeling it too and eyeing her in this exact moment with the same kind of stirring excitement she evoked in me.