hm. that's weird.

This was weird. Braden hardly got any cell phone reception anywhere in...the earth...but, here, wherever he was, Braden's phone came in crystal clear. Not that it made any calls. Braden had tried.

He sat cross legged in the snow. On a bout of childish energy, he'd wandered off to the big, rushing waterfall. It reminded him of ice fishing with his dad. He bet his dad had gone to get those hand warmers by now.

He closed his phone. Cordero sat next to him in the snow. He grabbed the phone from him.

Braden watched, semi intersted as Cordero examined it. As soon as Braden looked away, a sickening crack told Braden that the phone would never recieve phone calls ever again.

Great.

When Lynch laid down near the top of the waterfall and closed his eyes, he almost felt like he was becoming one with Amelia. His heartbeats synchronized with the sound of water pounding against rocks. He let the sound wash away his thoughts. He didn't need to think about what had happened here years ago.

A small cracking sound interrupted his nonthoughts. He got up and saw in the distance a clio with a monkey-thing daemon. Shnoo, who had been completely still and silent before, sprang to life and fluttered up to Lynch's shoulder as he stood and made his way over to the clio.

"Hello," he said casually to the clio, who looked kind of unhappy. "I like your daemon. He kind of looks like a baboon." He smiled.

Braden looked up, startled. "Hi!" he smiled, pleasantly at the clio. His mood was restored. Such a child, for some reason.

He glanced at Cordero. "That's what I thought. All my life, I thought I would have been..." Braden considered, "...um. I guess all my life I would've been a baboon. Well, actually, he's a drill monkey." He looked to his phone.

"I like your daemon too. He looks like a...very mean bird." Braden grinned. "I mean that in the nicest way possible."

"She," Lynch corrected. "She looks like a very mean bird." Shnoo made an offended sort of noise, which went ignored.

He pointed at what used to be a phone. "What's that?" he asked. Whatever it was it looked broken. "And what happened to it? Haha, I hope it wasn't anything valuable. I've never seen anything like it."

He sat down.

"Sorry," Braden nodded to the bird. Braden looked where he was pointing. "It is, well, it was a phone. People make calls on them. Well. Well, I would if it worked. Cordero here, broke it, so it's not any thing valuble anymore. Also, I don't know how to get home, and it doesn't work here, so it wasn't valuable before Cordero broke it anyways."

Braden offered it to him. "You can look at it, but it don't do much anymore."

Lynch raised his eyebrows. He pretty much had no idea what this guy was talking about. Nonetheless he took the phone, looked at it for about a second, then tossed it over his shoulder when it didn't turn out to be interesting. "You just said a whole lot, but none of it really made sense," he said bluntly.

Braden raised his arm to protest, but didn't because the broken phone mattered about as much as the skin on his elbow. He grinned. "Trust me, I know the feeling. Well, rather, I knew the feeling the moment I woke up next to Aven Silver. I know what he's talking about now." Braden thought about it.

"So what's your name?"

The boy was still talking like a crazy person, but Lynch didn't bother dwelling on it. Crazy clio were more interesting anyways.

"I'm Lynch. You know, like the word that means being killed by an angry mob?" Lynch replied. He loved his name. "And the mean bird is Shnoo." Shnoo lightly nipped Lynch's ear to show her irritation. "Ouch. How about you?"

Braden laughed, "Yes, I'm familiar."

He watched the other two interact. He ventured on a limb and stroked Cordero, who reacted curiously, looking up to see what had changed. Cordero smiled hugely at Braden, probably to apologize for breaking the phone. "I'm Braden. That's Cordero Eneco. It's nice to meet you guys."

It's nice to meet you guys.

"Is it? You don't know that yet. You might end up hating me," Lynch replied with a grin. "I make a great first impression, but after that I can't make any promises. But nice to meet you too...so far."

He looked out over the falls, and became momentarily lost in thought as he remembered Tamar Falls as the place that changed his life. But he quickly snapped out of it and turned back to Braden as if nothing had happened. Which it hadn't.

Braden thought about it a moment. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He grinned. "So far I like you, though."

He watched the other look out. "Well, Aven said something about Eilemaiden. Which one are you?"

Something about Eilemaiden? What was that supposed to mean? Maybe Braden wasn't weird, maybe he was...you know, slow or something. Or terribly sheltered. Something.

"Um, Cuir," Lynch replied after a moment. "Everyone in my family's in Cuir. My cousin's the Overloridian. What about you?"

Braden nodded, as if he understood. "I actually don't have an Eilemaiden."

Lynch laughed. "Everyone has an Eilemaiden," he responded, giving Braden A Look that plainly said "are you stupid or something?" because he was nice enough not to say it out loud.

"I don't." Braden says simply. "I'm not from around here." He gave him A Look back that plainly said, "I'm not stupid, I'm from Earth. Don't look at me like I'm stupid." Braden was too nice not to say that out loud. But giving mean looks was okay. Then Braden smiled again, "I came from a rip in the time-space continuum."

Lynch was pretty sure he had figured out what was wrong with Braden. He wasn't crazy or dumb or ignorant...

"Are you high?" he asked.

Braden took one look at Lynch. Then he started laughing. Between laughs, he managed, "No, not for a long time. I swear to you: I've got no Eilemaiden."

Rose hummed in a natural way "Cliff diving cliff diving how I looove cliff diving " She giggled and looked over the jagged edge. "A nice endless drop into the water"She grinned and was ready to jump when Jezabel barked at her warily.She turned to herfurry friend "Do you actually think that is wise" he said licking his paw. She smiled of course "Ive done this before " She looked over again "Only with shorter drops" she sighed "Fine I guess I wont jump " Jezabel sighed in releif. She herself then looked around. "That guy.." she said in a gentle voice. She looked at him and smiled "OIIIIII!" she waved then jumped from one rock to another "Its you!" She said smiling in a big way . Jezabel jumped down after her.

Lynch shook his head. "You've got to be on something." he insisted. "I swear to you: Everyone, every clio anywhere ever, has an Eilemaiden. And if they didn't they'd probably get killed or something. Yeah...any clio would be dead without their Eilemaiden. I definitely would. And so would you, probably."

He didn't notice the girl coming towards them.

She landed gracefully and flipped her hair out of her eyes.She smiled and then turned "Another Cuir!" she said joyfully some how she could recognize who was who.She smiled at him in a happy way then said "Im Roseangela by the way Rose for short please" She grinned "I dont think I caught your name " she said to thbrown eyed boy. She smiled at her fellow Cuir "And Its nice to meet you too.." she looked at them both for a chance of a name

"No, I swear to you. I haven't done any drugs since I was sixteen." He laughed. "I'm different than you."

He thought about it a moment, then, hesitantly tried to employ Aven's skillful tactics. He reached out and touched Lynch on the crotch of his jeans. He swallowed hard, his voice cracking. "H-how does that feel?"

He nodded at Rose in that teenage boyish up sort of way. He didn't speak. He was too tied up.

She blinked for a moment. "Oh lovers..." she coughedu ncomfrotably and backed up Jezabel too backed up in embarrasment . Sure she didnt mind who people loved but Rose was ignorant to mushy stuff it made her blush and fall. She just then nearly tripped when she caught herself and turned round

Lynch flinched in an incredibly noticeable fashion. He had to admit he was not expecting that, especially from a high boy who hadn't struck him as the bold type. He grabbed Braden's wrist and yanked his hand away.

"It kind of makes me feel like kicking your stoned ass," he replied with a completely straight face. He was serious too.

He quickly glanced up at Rose to let her know he had acknowledged her, but couldn't say anything because it would ruin his threatening demeanor. She muttered something but he didn't quite catch what it was.

Well, shit. That's exactly how I felt when Aven did it. Maybe we aren't different.

Braden pulled his hand away. "I'm not stoned. And I'm sorry for invading your space. I don't know why I don't have an Eilemaiden. I've never had one. I'm from Earth. I swear to you, I gut sucked into the time space continuum! I'm not from here. I'm a human."

He tucked his hands in his lap. "Aven did that to me when we met. It proved to me we were different. It doesn't work the other way around, apparently."

"And people call me weird," Lynch muttered, feeling violated. "I'm starting to go back to my original theory of you being crazy." He paused. "And I mean that in the nicest way possible."