She approached the trucker cautiously. He appeared to be adjusting one of the headlamps on his rig. He wore denim jeans and matching blue jacket. His broad back was towards her.
"Goin' my way, hot stuff?" she asked as way of an introduction. She had one hand on her out-thrust hip. Her jeans were at least a size too tight and showed that her petite figure had some luscious curves to it. Her leather boots had high heels on them and her shirt was unbuttoned enough to some tantalizing pieces of flesh.
He turned and looked at her. His eyes bearing into her. He eyed her up and down.
"Well, lookin' is free but I noticed that you didn't pick up a travellin' companion at this stop," she put her other hand on her hip and swished back her red hair. This caused the multitude of bracelets on her wrist to jangle like a wind-chime caught in a tornado. Her eyes were twinkling, "So, you goin' ta take me for a ride or don't you like the company of a fine woman?"
Without taking his eyes off of her, he reached over and popped open the passenger door.
"Get in."
"Ralph!!!"
"Ralph," she exclaimed again with disbelief and laughter. She had her boots off and was wriggling her painted toes on the dashboard of the truck. Turning his truck-driving permit over in her hand, she turned to him with a humorous frown, "By the Unicorn! What made you take up that name? I mean really, Roland, you could have chosen something more dignified."
"Oh really," he said, rising to the bait, "and coming on like over sexed trailer trash is what I should measure 'dignified' by?"
"Mother's Prerogative," she sniffed haughtily, "I lowered myself to the environment which YOU are living."
She sighed, throwing his permit onto the consol and stared at her stoic son sadly.
"I'm serious, Roland. Why this? You have spent years in that wood... Evermoor... and it is just as wild, if not more than, when you moved in. We thought for sure you would turn it into something worthwhile."
"I did."
She waved her hand in dismissal.
"And now this. A common worker. A mere peasant in an insignificant shadow. A Lord of Amber as a truck driver. You could be so much more..."
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he shifted gears. Different thoughts assailed him like 'if this shadow is so insignificant why is Aunt Flora here all the time' and 'what about Brand. Someone looking just like him was drinking coffee a block from Floramel's house.' Roland fought off a grin. Tracking his relatives was one of his favorite pass-times. He managed o find all of them at least once since he took up residence in Evermoor. All except for Corwin. Nobody knew where he was. He could also say with great confidence that none of them knew that they were being tracked throughout shadow. Except for Bleys. He strung Roland along for a month before he called it quits and invited him for a quiet drink so he could point out all of his mistakes. After that, Roland changed his tactics. He would look for one of them, find them, then leave immediately, wait several years before looking again, and never the same person twice in a row. Sometimes it was easy. Brand was in the library at the castle. Sometimes it was difficult. It took him a year to find Benedict in a shadow where he was overseeing an army of over 16 million beings. That was the one time he decided to stay. He was very careful to stay away from his Uncle by being a grunt on a different continent. It was a fun little war. Roland noticed that his mother's tirade was beginning to wind down,
"... So, what do you have to say for yourself?"
Roland, without taking his eye off the road, silently pointed at the glove compartment. With a questioning look his mother reached in and pulled out a small leather pouch. She untied the pouch and carefully removed a folded piece of cloth. She unwrapped it on her lap. Staring up at her was a golden coin about the size of a half-dollar in this shadow. On it was stamped the rampant unicorn of Amber. She looked up at him.
"This is not the currency we use in the City."
Roland flipped his fingers and she turned the coin over and stamped on it was a profile of her son. On the top it said, 'Conqueror, Uniter, Warrior,' and on the bottom it said, 'King Roland I.'
He looked his mother square in the face and said evenly,
"For almost two decades I ruled..."