Outside the Mirage

#23: Small Victories

"What's your favorite movie?" Vanessa asked.

"My favorite movie?" Merlyn pondered aloud. "Probably The Avengers."

"The Avengers?" Vanessa sounded surprised. "Not like, The Dark Knight or Spider-Man?"

"Those are both excellent choices," Merlyn agreed, "but personally, Joss Whedon's take on The Avengers is too perfect a film. I have no complaint with the movie; from start to finish, the premise of the movie - established superheroes from prior films teaming up to beat the bad guy - is captured and realized in a way that no studio has really managed to recapture since then. The Dark Knight is an impressive film, filled with great performances and excellent filmmaking. And certainly, there may be an argument for why The Dark Knight is a better film, but that doesn't make it my favorite. As for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, I do enjoy them a lot, but Tobey Maguire is not exactly the Peter Parker from the comics, and while that's a trivial thing to be hung up on, it does take me out of the movie somewhat."

Nodding, Vanessa said, "Alright, fair enough."

"What about you?" Merlyn asked, looking away from the road for a moment. "What's your favorite movie?"

"I don't know," she said. "It changes a lot. I like a lot of movies. The Lion King, The Wolverine, some of the older Bond movies, Les Miserables and High School Musical are all personal favorites."

"Interesting choices to be sure," Merlyn chuckled. "The Wolverine is an interesting choice. Most don't regard that film very well."

"It's an underrated gem."

"Because of the ninjas?"

Vanessa glared at him.

"Just asking," he replied.

"Are we almost there?"

Merlyn rolled his eyes and looked at his phone, currently clung to a holder that was attached to the windshield. "We left thirty minutes ago. So yeah, if you consider over twenty hours left of ride, we're almost there."

"Jesus, I have to be stuck in a car with you for twenty more hours? Listening to Taylor Swift?"

"I don't know if there's twenty hours of Taylor Swift left to listen to," Merlyn confessed. "I'll put on something else when we've exhausted her catalog of musical prowess."

"You're irritating," Vanessa said.

"You're irritating," Merlyn snapped.

"That was mean!"

"That's literally what you just said to me."

"But I said it lovingly."

"You certainly did not!"

"Oh, so you know the tone of my voice better than I do?"

"I'm going to go ahead and say probably."

"Probably? But not definitely?"

Merlyn rolled his eyes.

"Nothing to say, magic man?"

"I will fire you."

"You wouldn't fire me," Vanessa said. "You brought me to Alaska with you."

"As bait," Merlyn joked. "If we encounter a monster, I can throw you to them and escape."

"You couldn't throw me if you tried."

"I'm a magic man, remember."

"Yeah but mages can't move living objects," Vanessa said. "I'll just strip quickly and you won't be able to move me."