“they are saying you’re truly Erohim, and you’re going to be leaving us to save your mother and if you leave you will not be coming back anymore, but I don’t want you to leave because you are my… my friend, and if I…”

She paused as a blush stained her cheeks and her rushed words turned to a whispered mutter.

Rowan wanted to roll his eyes in exasperation, but he knew that would hurt her, and he was not such an ass*ole that he could not appreciate the strength it took for her to speak her mind, many adult men would never be able to do so.

Yet he also found it funny, how closer to the truth they were, but their logic was coming from an entire direction from his own.

‘That was quick.’ Rowan thought as he began considering her words. Was she already considering him a friend?

He was surprised that she was not more afraid of the powers he had displayed. But the minds of children were purer than adults, and this reminded him of the story of Erohim being narrated to him by Circe which had been cut short.

He wasn’t concerned about such tales, but he needed to understand the name that he had been tagged with, for every name comes with its own burden, and although he would not carry it, it would not hurt if he knew of it.

Rowan had been silent for two seconds, but Diane had already begun sweating buckets, he sighed, “You don’t have to worry Diane. I shall keep you and your family safe until we reach the underground city.”

“I know that. But what about after… can you? Will you take me with you when you leave?”

Rowan’s eyes widened a bit, “why would you want to leave with me, Diane?”

She appeared to search for words and her eyes lit up, “Because I’m your maid, my lord.”

Rowan smiled, “Are you my friend or my maid?”

She had a silly smile on her face, “Can they be mutually exclusive?”

Rowan smiled deepened in amusement, and he stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, with his height, her head was closer to his belly button. He detected a slight shiver run down her frame.

Mortals were so… fragile. She could as well be a balloon filled with air, and a slight puff from him would erase her from existence.

“Diane, I’m going to tell you the truth because you’re my friend as well. Where I’m going, you cannot come with. It will be a place far beyond all concepts of distance. But I promise you something. I shall keep you and your family safe from every harm until we reach the city.”

Stubbornly sticking to her guns, she said, “Is it because I’m…weak, that I cannot be with you my lord?”

“It does not matter that you’re weak or strong, Diane. It is just the natural order of things. The path I walk, you cannot follow it. This path is for me alone.”

“Will it not be too lonely, my lord?”

“well, loneliness is subjective to an individual conscious mind.”

Diane sniffed, “why the big words, my lord?”

“well ‘miss mutually exclusive’ I would have you know, you started it!”

“That’s not a big word, my art teacher frequently says it.”

“I could also argue the same thing. I frequently use those words, maybe not with you.”

“liar, I’ve never heard you say them to anyone else.”

“well, well, well… I did not know I had a stalker listening through all my conversations.”

Diane blushed, “you know it’s not like that… at the table, you don’t use such words.”

Rowan smiled, as he began to understand the mental dissonance within the mind of the child. When he was with them at the table, he laughed and joked with them as a human, and it was easy for them to forget what he was.

But, that knowledge was never far from their mind when they leave the little bubble inside their home, and they hear of his deeds from others. He knew that Trevor and Olga may be able to handle the differences between him as a godlike figure and his other personality when they were together as they were both mature and might have dealt with other similar situations with other powerful Dominators, but Diane was still a child.

It was hard for her to reconcile the image of an all powerful being with someone who laughed at her silly jokes; there was a fear of him leaving her because in her mind Rowan was already a friend.

“Tell me Diane, what happened to your sister?”

Her smile slipped away, and she looked around for a while before speaking, her voice was low at first, but the constant reassurance from Rowan’s gaze gave her strength and she began speaking faster.

“I did not know Sylvia all that much, and I believe I was six years old when she… Um, passed. But I can still… I still remember the sound of her voice when she sang. She took after papa like that. You should have heard her, my lord, she sounded like an Angel.”

Rowan paused. “I believe you, and I wished I could have heard her sing.”

Diane smiled, it was a sad expression that conveyed so much, “when it happened, I think in some ways, we had been expecting it to. It is a horrible thing, you know.”

” I believe it was towards the end of the previous Great Storm. My memories are not too clear about those times, but I remember Sylvia began to see a Noble boy in the western districts. I remember the screams from papa and Sylvia during their arguments.”

“Papa had many fights with her about associating with such people beyond our station, but I did not think she listened, mother says she took more than just a lover for singing from papa, she also took his Iron Head.”

“She grew more distant from us, and she began leaving the house for days on end. I think she was convinced the Noble was going to wed her or make her his concubine, and she began devoting more time to him. Then she did not return home one day.”

“Papa went to the western districts to find her, and after weeks he could not see any trace of her, at first, the Noble boy lied to him that Sylvia refused to see him, but papa was not convinced and kept returning, when he saw he was not making any headway, he escalated the issue.”

“He gathered enough of his fellow craftsmen to confront the Noble family responsible for my sister’s disappearance. But they were attacked, and papa’s arms were broken in more than seven places, same with his ribs and legs.”

“Mama stopped talking for months, you know. The only thing I could do was not cry, you see. Because I thought it would lessen their pain, but who am I fooling. Mama still cries during Sylvia’s birthday every year.” 𝙫.𝒎

Rowan was quiet, he knew the tyranny of the powerful and the plight of the weak. A similar situation or even worse were happening in a million worlds beneath the gaze of an uncaring sun. Who could be blamed for such a situation?

“Wait a moment.” Diane suddenly said, and she ran back to her bags where she began rummaging through it. Rowan already knew what was inside the bags the moment he first entered the vehicle, but he waited for her to bring out a box, and run back to him.

She opened it, and there was a wrapped cloth inside that she peeled apart, revealing a picture and other knick-knacks.

The Picture was a smiling girl in the prime of her youth, her eyes were lively, and her smile were contagious.