Welcome to my humble adobe

"Welcome to my humble adobe!" Cady exclaimed with much enthusiasm upon entering her little bitty house. She had been able to buy it using money from a trust fund she'd received from her late grandmother. It was a messy house; Cady practically never cleaned. Clothes were strewn about and most of the furniture was covered dust.

"Come on in, I'll give you the tour," she led her house guests throughout the house. "This is the living room, there's the kitchen, down the hall you'll find a bathroom, the room next to it is my room, and you guys can have the room across from it! Don't worry, it's cleaner than the rest of the house."

She grinned at them. She loved company!

Many of the things in Cady's house were new to Alecis, but she tried to ignore them. Maybe with a good nights sleep she would be able to think better.

She and Rowan had barely unlinked their hands the whole time since the hospital, but that was perfectly okay with Alecis. She needed him close. It soothed her, she really was more frightened than she led on, and also let her know that she wasn't crazy, Rowan was here too.

Maybe tomorrow they could find some other clio! That would be wonderful. But for now, all Alecis wanted to do was sleep.

Alecis smiled at Cady after the tour was finished. She liked this girl, she was fun and nice and didn't seem as strange as Alecis had originally thought. Maybe aliens weren't that weird after all.

"I'm okay with messy," Alecis laughed, "I have two kids at home." As soon as the words had left her mouth Alecis regretted them. More to make Rowan try to remember that wasn't true. "I mean, they're my brother and sister, but they live with me--I mean, us."

'Smooth,' Alecis heard in her mind.

"RHEIS!" Alecis ripped open her bag and picked out the groggy looking fox. He was awake!

Overlooking the horrible mess and the number of weird things that Rowan didn't recognize, Cady's house didn't seem like it would be a bad place to stay. Not that he had any other place to compare it to besides the hospital. And Cady was being very hospitable, letting Rowan and Alecis and Nym all stay at her house.

Having Leci there helped greatly to decrease his feeling of awkwardness, seeing as how she hardly seemed to recognize anything more in this strange world than him. Plus he found himself really enjoying her company. Well, that was a good thing, considering the fact that they were engaged and all.

"RHEIS!" Alecis ripped open her bag and picked out the groggy looking fox. He was awake!

"Is that your daemon?" he asked.

"Wow! A fox!" Cady exclaimed, looking at the fox in awe. She'd never seen one before except at the zoo and on TV. "It's so cute! Can it talk too?"

After admiring the fox for a while, she recomposed herself and returned to her role as the hostess. "So, anyways," she cleared her throat. "What do you guys wanna go? It's pretty late, we could go to bed if you're tired. Or if you're hungry I could try to make dinner, though I really suck at cooking. If either of you can cook that'd be great. Otherwise we'll manage somehow."

"Yeah, I'm her dæmon and yup, I can talk, though I'd prefer not to at the moment, a have a killer headache," the fox said slowly.

It seemed like the second Rheis mentioned it, the headache moved into Alecis's head as well. "Jeez, I'll say!" Leci said putting her hand up to her forehead. "How hard did that bear hit you, Rheis?"

Alecis moved over to a couch and sat down, still holding her dæmon. It had been ages since he'd been awake.

Rheis didn't answer Leci's question, but instead answered Cady's, "We're actually very hungry at the moment. I would tell Lec to cook, but if she stands up I think she might fall over. We'd be happy for anything though! I don't mind raw meat either."

"If I could cook before I can't now," Rowan answered Cady, shrugging. Honestly he had no idea what half the stuff in her kitchen was, and wondered if he ever had known, because none of it looked even remotely familiar.

"I like raw meat too!" Nym agreed with Rheis amiably. "But you might wanna give the clio something cooked. They don't handle raw meat very well."

"But you might wanna give the clio something cooked. They don't handle raw meat very well."

"Yeah, I know that at least!" Cady laughed. She had learned by now that "clio" meant "human." Maybe Amelia was in a foreign country and that's why they had all those weird words. Then again, foreign countries didn't have talking animals. Maybe they really were from another planet. Weird.

"I guess I could microwave something," she suggested. "Or we could just order a pizza. It's up to you guys."

"Microwave? Pizza?" Rheis asked quietly, snuggling against Alecis. The past few days were coming to him slowly, but it bugged him to only be able to remember it through Alecis's eyes and not his own.

Alecis smiled and just to make things simple replied, "Pizza sounds good. What's it made out of?"

"Is it meat?" Nym asked. Ever since Rheis had mentioned it, Nym realized she was really in the mood for meat.

As Rowan silently wondered what pizza was and how Cady was supposed to order it while at home, he tried to think more about this "Amelia" place to see if it would stir up any memories. No luck so far. Maybe he just had to give it another night.

"Yeah, pizza's fine," he agreed absent-mindedly.

"You've never had pizza before!?" Cadance gasped melodramatically, looking shocked. How could someone go through childhood without having a pizza? These people must really be deprived where they come from!

Cady whipped out her iPhone again and dialed the number to Longo's. In a few short minutes she had ordered three large pizzas from a nice girl named Shannon and asked for them to deliver it ASAP.

"Pizza is amazing!" Alecis replied after she had eaten three pieces. "I don't know what the heck it is, but I love it!"

Rheis agreed by nodding, and then jumping onto Alecis's lap. "You clio really know how to live around here, don't you? And hey, what was that thing you talked into? I can't believe you find dæmons strange, but all of this," he looked around the room at all of Cady's technological things, "is completely normal to you."

In spite of everything that had happened over the past few days, by the end of dinner Rowan found himself having a good time and laughing with Leci and Cady and hardly thinking about all the bad things that had happened.

Nym yawned. "I'm tiiiiiiired," she announced, laying down at her clio's feet. "G'night." And she was out like a light.

"Yeah, well, I grew up with all this stuff!" Cady replied to Rheis. She couldn't believe she was talking to a fox. It was AWESOME. She smiled a little when Nym fell asleep. Then she herself yawned; it was contagious. "Aw, now I'm tired too!" She looked at her new friends. "You guys wanna go to bed? We might have to wake up early tomorrow, depending on when Aly shows up."

She stood up and stretched. "Come on, I'll show you where your bedroom is."

That sounded perfect to Rheis and Alecis, who both yawned as if on command. At least, until Cady said "bedroom". Singular, not plural.

Crap. Alecis had forgotten. Hey, it isn't that bad. Now we don't have to be that far from Rowan! Rheis told his clio. They could let Rowan have the bed and they would sleep on the floor. Even if they really were engaged, Rowan probably would feel more at ease sleeping alone tonight, he still didn't remember anything that had happened before.

"Sounds good!" Alecis said groggily and yet still happily. Tonight had actually turned out to be fun, something that earlier today she wouldn't of thought was possible. But now she had Rowan, she had a full tummy, and she was about to get a warm place to sleep. Hey, maybe not sleeping in Cuir wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Grabbing Rowan's hand, Alecis let Cady lead the way to their bedroom.

"Thanks," Rowan thanked Cady before she disappeared into her own room which was right across the hall. He turned to Leci. "So..." he said slowly, trailing off. He didn't know what to say. He hadn't thought it would feel awkward being alone with her, but it did.

Can we just wrap this up and get to bed? Nym asked grouchily. She was grumpy because she had been forced to wake up in order to walk to the room.

"Oh, Rowan, it's okay. You take the bed, I know this must be awkward for you. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable," Alecis smiled at her "fiancee". "Rheis and I, we don't mind."

Alecis released his hand and then walked over to the bed to get herself a pillow and the blanket that had been folded near the bottom of the bed. She left behind two pillows and the down comforter that was spread over the bed.

"Is that okay? If you want I could go sleep on one of the couches instead?"

"Oh no, you don't have to do that," Rowan said quickly. It definitely didn't feel right to make a girl sleep on the floor. "You take the bed, I can sleep on the floor."

He knew Nym wouldn't disagree because she had already fallen asleep on the floor.

"I think Nym even prefers the floor," he added.

"Oh no, really, I'll take the floor. You probably shouldn't with that head injury. And maybe if you get a good nights sleep you'll remember something in the morning. That's really what we're working towards. It's more important than getting home, even." Alecis said to him.

Rheis, on the other hand was already alseep, haven laid down on the bed to wait for the two clio to make up their minds.

She had him there. He didn't want to ruin any chance of getting his memories back, even if it was a slim one. "Fine," he agreed resignedly, pulling back the covers on the side of the bed he was standing by. "But I'm still not letting you sleep on the floor."

He noticed that her daemon was already curled up fast asleep on the bed. "'Sides, you don't want to have to wake your daemon, do you? Didn't he get injured too?"

So wait, he wanted to share the bed? Is that what he was implying?

Oh, she wanted to so bad! But honestly, she shouldn't. It wasn't like they were going to do anything, but it still felt wrong. Perhaps in this world he was her fiancee, but somewhere else he had a girlfriend waiting for him. And by now, she was probably very worried.

But he had a point, moving Rheis would probably be a bad idea. So, smiling, Alecis agreed with him(it was easier making the wrong choice having her conscience asleep already), "Okay, I just don't want you to feel weird, you know. I've never lost my memory before and I don't know how it feels. If you don't mind though, we can share."

"It's fine with me," Rowan replied, half-truthfully. It did feel a little weird, but if he wanted to remember anything he had to get over the weirdness and do whatever he normally did. (And while he'd never admit it out loud, he kind of liked the idea of sharing a bed with an attractive girl.)

As they got into bed Rowan turned to her and said, "Um, Leci, if you're not too tired, I kind of had some things I wanted to ask you..."

Alecis propped herself up on her pillow and turned to Rowan. "Sure, go for it. I'm open to anything that might help you."

And yet, Alecis was finding herself hoping he wouldn't remember one important detail of his former life...

"I, uh, don't know where to start," Rowan said. He had practically a lifetime's worth of questions. "I guess I just want to know everything...about me, about us, about Amelia. Whatever you can tell me. Do we have friends? Family? How'd we meet? And what are Eilemaiden? ...I have so many questions."

Ugh. She was going to have to tell him more lies... The least she could do was make them happy lies. Things like his parents were probably things she should omit. Perhaps little white lies to make things better wouldn't count as a bad thing?

"Well, you and I met when I became Overloridian. That was about three years ago, just after I settled. You're the Overloridian of Dian, and I'm of Cuir. At first we didn't get along, but in the end I realized how amazing you were and..."

Alecis didn't know how to continue.

"Anyways, you and Nym are twenty-three, and you live with me in a city called Dahlin(inwardly, Alecis cringed at the lie). My little sister and brother live with us, Eva and Lorrik. My parents died when I was young and I've been taking care of them ever since."

Alecis turned to look at Rowan to see how he was taking all of this. He seemed pretty calm so Alecis continued, "Eilemaiden are basically our powers. The clio of Cuir control the wind, you, being of Dian, can control metals. For some reason our Eilemaiden stopped working when we came here though..."

Alecis stopped to give Rowan time to process the information she had just given him.

"Well...I'm sorry about your parents..." Rowan said quietly. He noticed that Alecis didn't say anything about his family, though. He wanted to ask her, but it seemed too insensitive to do right after she had revealed that her parents were dead. He decided to ask another time.

"Um, you said we were Overloridians," he said instead. "What does that mean?"