Interesting[Charlie-no other posters plz]

It was just beginning to get dark as Rowan made his way back from Dahlin down Theodore Lane. Usually Theodore Lane was not the place one wanted to be caught alone at night, due to troublesome clios who liked to jump unsuspecting clio traveling down the road. However, usually they were either too smart or too scared to try and attack an Overloridian, lest they have their heads handed to them. So Rowan wasn't too concerned, but kept his guard up nonetheless.

It was a shame that it was such a dangerous place to walk, Rowan thought. It would actually be kind of peaceful if you weren't always having to look over your shoulder. Quiet and secluded. Surrounded by forest on both sides. Oh well...

He continued to walk down the pathway, occasionally looking up through the tree branches at the stars that were just beginning to appear in the darkening sky.

"Jeez, Mae," Charlie said, bending over and holding her knees, which were shaking. She was catching her breath after running a long distance in a short time. "Can you look and see if they're still following us?" Mae nodded and flew into the air, circling the area without getting too far from Charlie. The bird soon took her place on Charlie's shoulder and shook her head.

"They're not following us any longer, Charlie. You should rest up a bit," Mae said, hopping from her shoulder to the top of her head, nuzzling her beak into the blue ribbon pulling Charlie's hair back. Charlie nodded and took a deep breath, and she started walking at a slow pace. Her knees had stopped shaking, and she seemed a bit calmer now.

"It took them long enough to fall behind, huh?" Charlie asked, a smirk on her face. She laughed a bit at the whole situation. She had mentioned to her father that she didn't get enough time alone, and instead of giving her the time she wanted, he called in all three bodyguards to watch her. So she ran away, and they had followed her to this point. She finally had time to rest. Or so she thought. She heard footsteps far behind her, fast and hard. "You've gotta be kidding me," she said under her breath, and she started running again. She saw someone coming her way, but she couldn't quite tell who it was, since darkness was falling.

'Geez, how long does this road go on for?' Nym asked. She was getting bored. Unlike her clio, she was not blessed with a long attention span.

'Actually, it's quite a ways longer,' Rowan replied with a smile.

'Wonderful,' griped Nym.

They continued on in silence for a very short while, until suddenly up ahead Rowan saw someone running in his direction. He couldn't tell who it was because it was too dark, but he could tell by her silhouette that she was a girl. A little bird-like daemon was flying next to her. In the distance, Rowan could barely make out a large figure that seemed to be chasing the girl.

Was the girl being attacked by the large clio behind her? That seemed likely. After all, this was Theodore Lane. So as much as he didn't want to, Rowan brandished a long, whip-like chain that had been concealed in one of his sleeves and rushed forward to help.

He got behind the girl, putting himself between her and her attacker. Her attacker was a huge, muscular man with a hyena daemon that Nym had lunged at, baring her fangs. Rowan quickly willed the chain forward; it whipped out and wrapped itself around the large clio's ankles so fast he didn't have time to react. Rowan gave the chain a little tug and the large clio came toppling over.

Charlie stopped running when she realized the man on the road was helping her, and she smiled with relief. She didn't have time just yet to thank him, considering a fight had started and she was still a bit out of breath from the last run, let alone this one. She knew her bodyguard wouldn't fall so easily, but hoped he wouldn't hurt the man helping her. She didn't even think to look over and see who he might be, but he was obviously from Dian if he was using a metal chain. She stood there, watching in awe at her bodyguard as Mae flew around her.

Her bodyguard had landed on his back quite hard, his daemon also falling to his back from the attack. The man reached his hands behind his head and to the ground, condensing the dirt in his hands and making it a good sized rock. He then threw it in the man's direction, hoping it would catch him off guard. Before it reached the man, Charlie took quick action and stopped the rock in mid-air, breaking it into tiny pieces and shooting them at her bodyguard's hands, pinning them to the ground where his wristbands were for the moment being. She hit his face a bit as well, cutting it some to try and keep him from concentrating on attacking them back. Mae circled around the two daemons, picking at the hyena and helping the dog.

Rowan became defensive when the large man recovered quickly and sent a nice-sized rock hurtling towards him (So the man was from Adhbhar. That was just wonderful). Before he had the chance to act, the rock broke into pieces and turned on the large clio, hitting him head on and pinning him to the ground.

For a split second Rowan was confused, but then he realized that the girl too was from Adhbhar, and she was helping him. She certainly was skilled, which made Rowan wonder why she was running away in the first place.

Rowan realized wherein his advantage lied. The large man was strong, but not fast, and certainly not smart. All it would take to finish him was a good blow to the head, and since the man was currently immobile, Rowan seized his chance. The end of his chain curled and knotted itself into a tight, dense ball. He easily willed the chain to attack, the end of it striking the man in the temple hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to cause any lasting damage.

Once sure that the man and his daemon were definitely unconscious, Rowan turned to the girl. "Are you al-" With a start he realized it was Charlie Preston, the Overloridian from Adhbhar. Why in the world was she being attacked by one of her own!? Something wasn't right here...

Charlie watched as the guy finished her bodyguard off and smiled, even more relieved that he was unconscious. Mae flew over to her, and she put out her finger for the bird to rest on. She was curious as to why he had stopped mid-sentence, and so she turned to see if something was wrong. She quickly realized who he was, and realized what he had realized. He was Rowan, the Dian Overloridian who had taken a seat next to her and introduced himself first. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, and he obviously was if he helped out strangers being chased. But now Charlie was a bit embarrassed, and she looked away to avoid any eye contact.

"Rowan, hi," she said quietly, looking down at the unconscious man before her. "Thank you for helping me out with...him." She kicked some dirt on him, still angry at her father and taking it out on the helpless bodyguard. It probably wasn't the best way to use her anger, but she wasn't quite sure how to handle it just yet. She still had much to learn. Charlie put her finger by her head so Mae could easily jump onto it again, and she looked back to Rowan's general direction, smiling a bit to try and make it seem like she wasn't so embarrassed.

So Charlie recognized him too. He was still confused. Charlie obviously seemed to know the guy they had just taken out, and didn't seem to like him very much, but that didn't explain why he was chasing her. He was worried that he had just been involved in some horrible misunderstanding, but he eased up a little when Charlie smiled at him. She had a nice smile.

Nym came trotting back to his side, obviously very happy with herself, and even more happy that she had just gotten to have some fun.Though she was a little confused herself. She gazed curiously at Charlie and her daemon.

"Uh, you're welcome," Rowan said to Charlie cautiously. He felt a little ridiculous asking his next question, but he needed to know. "Er...What just...happened?"

Charlie knew it was inevitable that he would ask that question, and she thought of making some excuse to try and make her seem like less of a brat, but she figured it would just fall through later on and make her look even worse, so the truth it was.

"Well, I have these bodyguards following me around all the time, practically everywhere I go...I get barely any time to myself, so I told my dad and he just flipped out on me and hired all three to watch me at the same time, so I kind of...ran away." She shrugged and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her baggy cargo pants, looking to the ground and then back up at him, hoping he didn't think she was too immature.

There was a short awkward pause. Finally, all Rowan said was, "Oh." Charlie's anecdote made Rowan briefly think of when he had had to run away, all those years ago. He thought about his parents, who he hadn't had any contact with in over six years. But he quickly pushed those thoughts from his mind.

Then suddenly something hit him. "Wait a minute..." he said slowly. Then, a little alarmed, "I knocked out your bodyguard?"

'Is there some kind of law against that?' Nym asked, sensing Rowan's feelings.

There wasn't, Rowan knew that, after all anyone would have done the same thing in his position. But would Adhbhar see it that way when the story reached them? They already hated him as it was.

"Yeah," Charlie said during the awkward pause. She just looked back at the ground, and over to the bodyguard when he asked. "Well, yeah, you knocked out my bodyguard, but it's no big deal. I'll just say I did it. I'm sure they won't find out that you did it with your chains...I won't tell them, at least. Maybe they'll actually listen to me if they think I knocked out my bodyguard," she said, laughing a little from amusement. She wouldn't have been able to knock him out without Rowan's help, but her father didn't know that. He didn't use his Eilemaiden much anymore, and he didn't even teach Charlie what she knew. Anything she knew she learned from her brothers as she grew up.

'Do you really think they'll believe that you knocked him out?' Mae asked telepathically, trying to help Charlie think of some way she could have done it on her own.

'I'll think of something,' she replied, still examining his position. His hands were still pinned to the ground...she didn't need to worry about it just yet, not until other Adhbhar clio came along did she need to worry. So she turned her attention back to Rowan.

Maybe they'll actually listen to me if they think I knocked out my bodyguard.

The clio of Adhbhar didn't listen to Charlie? That wasn't right. Young as she was, she was still the Overloridian. It was amazing how differently things were done in Adhbhar than Dian.

"Well, thank you," Rowan said when Charlie offered to take the blame for the incident. In fact, she seemed more than happy to take the blame. He paused, in which he was deciding whether or not to ask his next question. He decided to. "What do you mean, 'maybe they'll listen' to you?"

Charlie nodded happily, her way of saying no problem. She looked to him as he spoke again, and she licked her lips, trying to figure out a way to say it.

"Well, it's mostly just my advisors and my dad who don't listen to me. They think I should constantly be protected because of what happened to the last Overloridian, and I guess they think someone will try to do the same to me, even though the last guy was easily found and killed for it...some people are so stupid." She stopped for a second when she noticed she was rambling, and tried to focus. "Anyways, I try to tell them that I don't need as much protection as they're offering, it'll just draw attention to me. But they don't listen, and my father just keeps insisting more and more protection, but I can handle myself. I don't need him to watch over me every second of my life..." She rolled her eyes thought about how she ran away, wondering if it was such a good idea.

'Of course not, that was what I told you before, but you went anyways,' Mae said, but Charlie just chuckled to her in her mind.

'But if I hadn't run away, we wouldn't have had all that fun,' she replied. And she really did have fun running from them, even if it didn't seem fun at the time. And finally doing what she wanted and taking down that bodyguard and his stupid hyena was fun, too. Mae agreed and figured it was worth it. The two put their attention back onto Rowan and Nym, not thinking much of what Charlie had said. It probably wasn't a good idea to tell so much to another Overloridian.

Rowan listened with interest. He figured Charlie was lucky that he was the one she was telling her life story to. He could think of a few other Overloridians who would abuse such information.

"I can understand your situation," he said carefully. He didn't want to accidentally offend her. Compared to the other Overloridians, he actually kind of liked her. "But you know, you probably shouldn't be telling me all this...not that I'd use it against you." Then suddenly something hit him. Something that he'd heard about long, long ago, when he still lived in Adhbhar. "Wait...you live with your father?"

'What a strange man,' Charlie said to Mae telepathically. 'First he warns me that I shouldn't tell people things, but then he asks me more? Hm.'

'Should you tell him?' Mae answered, examining both Nym and Rowan. 'Can you trust them?'

'I don't see why not,' Charlie said, though she was doubting it a little. He seemed like an good guy to talk to, someone who wouldn't go and use any information for himself...either that or he was really good at acting nice.

"I trust you," she said with a smile. She was watching what she was saying a little bit, making sure not to mention any names of other bodyguards or advisors. Not that Rowan would be able to find them anyways, but she was being somewhat careful. It seemed like she was getting closer to him than she was to the other Overloridians, which was good. "And yeah, I live with my father." She was curious as to why he was wondering about that. She hadn't quite made the connect yet that he was the infamous Rowan who left Adhbhar to become the Dian Overloridian...but she'd probably get there soon.

Charlie looked bewildered at first, but then she smiled. She really did have a lovely smile. She said she trusted him. That was nice to hear. A little naive...but still nice. She answered the question, and it looked to Rowan as if she was wondering why he had suddenly asked her.

"Well..." Rowan said, unsure of what to say next. Was it possible Charlie didn't know about her own father? He had to handle this delicately. "When I used to live in Adhbhar...your father was kind of...well-known." Infamous was a better word, but Rowan decided against using it.

Charlie suddenly realized when he mentioned that he used to live in Adhbhar who he was. She hadn't thought about it before, since she always imagined the infamous Rowan to be a jerk, but he was actually really nice. She didn't mention it just yet, maybe later in the conversation. She was more curious as to what he'd heard about her father. She automatically assumed it had to do with her mother, since not many people understood the reasoning for the murder, not even Charlie. People had learned to accept it, as Charlie had to, and now Charlie only heard things now and then rather than regularly.

"You're talking about my mother, right?" she asked, though she knew the answer. She didn't let it bother her as much now as she used to, she tried to not let it bother her at all now. She seemed fine talking about it, even though it was still sort of hard to forgive her father for what he did. It had to do with love, which she had yet to experience at such a young age.

"You're talking about my mother, right?"

Rowan blinked. Okay, so apparently Charlie did know. Oh, this was going to be awkward. "Yeah..." he said slowly, after a moment of hesitation. "When you said you lived with him I wasn't sure if you..." He trailed off. Even though Charlie didn't look upset, Rowan figured that it might be a good idea not to dwell on the topic. He didn't know what to say next, so the silence just hung in the air between them.

"Yeah," was all she said, just adding onto how awkward it had become. She looked to the ground, kicking some dirt. During the silence she started to wonder if it would be an okay time to mention who he was. She figured it wouldn't hurt, and she looked up to him again. "So," she started. She didn't know what she was going to ask exactly, since he obviously knew who he was, and he probably knew that she knew.

'Why are you so worried about it, anyways?' Mae asked. 'It's just Rowan.'

'I know,' Charlie replied. 'But he's actually really cool, and I don't wanna offend him.'

'He's an Overloridian, Charlie. You're gonna have to offend him sometime, it's inevitable.'

'But not with personal things like this,' Charlie replied. The silence just dragged on after her unsuccessful start. 'I wanna be nice.'

"I'm just curious," she said, starting from a different angle. She wasn't going to be nice or be mean, she was just going to ask a question that hopefully wouldn't offend him too much. "Why did you decide to leave Adhbhar?" The story in Adhbhar was missing a few details, and in result made Rowan seem like the bad person. The story was simply that he chose Dian over Adhbhar after he'd spent his entire life living in Adhbhar, and had told his parents he was choosing it. It just seemed like a strange thing to do, and it got onto the subject of who he was.

Rowan was taken aback by the question. Not because of the straightforwardness, but because he thought the answer was extremely obvious.

"Don't you know?" he asked her, surprised that he needed to explain himself. "Overloridian are pre-destined to rule. It's decided before we're born. I didn't decide to leave Adhbhar...I had to." He had been sixteen, the same age Charlie was now, when he'd found out he was the new Overloridian. He thought back to that day and frowned. It was not a pleasant memory. Although he had come to love Dian, it still hurt that he'd had to give up everything from his old life.

Charlie blinked. She hadn't thought much about the story, since she just listened to what they had told her, but it made sense that he would have had to choose Dian if he was pre-chosen to rule it. That large detail made Rowan seem like the bad guy, when it really wasn't his fault. What a different perspective.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. She was more sorry at the fact that he was frowning, which made it pretty obvious that it was a touchy subject for him. It wasn't really her fault, since she was told that he left on his own, but she still felt really bad. "I shouldn't have brought it up." She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but she wasn't sure how his mind worked just yet when it came to that, so she kept to herself and hoped he was okay. She understood bad memories.

Rowan looked up and saw that Charlie looked genuinely sorry for bringing up the topic, which immediately made him feel bad because he didn't want to make her feel bad.

"Oh no, it's fine," he said quickly, waving it off. "It's natural that you would be curious about me." He paused. That sounded kind of presumptuous. Usually Rowan didn't care if he sounded presumptuous, but for some reason with Charlie it was different. "I mean...about what happened," he amended.

Nym was quickly getting bored with the clio's conversation and decided to go and play with Charlie's daemon.

Charlie wasn't sure what to say to that, since she was more curious about him than what happened, though she was interested in both. She didn't have much time to reply anyways, since when she looked down again she saw her bodyguard glaring up at her.

"Eek!" she said, jumping a little. The moonlight coming through the trees around them was reflecting in the man's eyes, and started to speak as Charlie continued to stare.

"Oh, Ms. Preston. I can't wait to tell your father about this," he said slowly as he sat up. The hyena laying next to him started to get up as well, and Charlie started to panic. "Let's just go home now, Ms. Preston. It'll make things a lot less painful."

"I don't wanna go back yet," she said, kicking the ground. A wall of rock, reaching to her waist, came up from the ground. She kicked it over so it landed on the bodyguard, and she quickly grabbed Rowan's hand and ran into the trees of the forest. Mae flew above Nym as the daemons ran into the forest with them.

When Charlie's bodyguard started to come to, Rowan was afraid he'd have to knock him out again. However, Charlie did the honors for him, and then grabbed his hand as they darted into the forest, Nym and Mae following close behind.

They stopped not too deeply into the forest, but deep enough that they could no longer see the opening where Theodore Lane was. They crouched down just in case the bodyguard decided to come looking for them.

After the adrenaline wore off, Rowan noticed that Charlie hadn't let go of his hand, and that they were so close they were almost touching. Even though it was nearly pitch black, he could see the faint outline of Charlie's profile, and realized that their faces were only inches apart. Normally his first instincts would be to pull away, but right now he didn't want to move. He wanted to stay like this. Close.

Charlie looked to the figure in front of her, almost physically feeling his stare. She blushed a bit as she felt his breath against her skin, and she was glad that it was too dark for him to see it. A slight smile crept onto her face, and she turned her head down towards the ground, thinking in her head about what she wanted to do. She knew what she wanted to do, but she wasn't sure if it was such a good idea. She turned her head back up, looking for just a second before closing her eyes and going for it. She closed the gap between them and softly set her lips against his, hoping that it wasn't a bad decision. This was the second time they'd ever met, and she was already kissing him? Suddenly she started to doubt her judgement, but she didn't pull away just yet. She needed to know his reaction before she could tell if it was really a good decision or not.

Rowan didn't know what to think at first when Charlie turned towards him, but he quickly learned that it was best not to think for the moment and to just feel. When Charlie kissed him, it felt so...right. So natural. As if they had known each other for, well, longer than a few days.

He allowed his free hand to rest lightly on the small of her back. It had been a long time since Rowan had last had a romantic encounter with anyone, but that didn't really matter now as he kissed Charlie back. It didn't matter that there was currently a bodyguard searching for them, or that they were from different Eilemaiden, or that the Overloridians would flip if they found out. Rowan was completely lost in the moment. And what a wonderful moment it was.