Cleiona (Cleo) Bellos/Theon Ranus

I, GreenFantasy64, don't own the Falling Kingdom series or their characters. I hope you guys enjoy the story! : )

It became their second official day of being together as the princess and her bodyguard. So Cleiona Bellos wanted to see how good Theon Ranus was at in keeping up with her. If she could lose him in the Castle could he find her in a breeze? The answer was no within few hours. She had slithered away on the chance he looked away with a bored expression.

That was the time when she was at the garden pretending to admire the roses at noon. The red roses flourishing in the warm sunlight. The color standing out against her pale skin. She had took her time looking at each individual one without talking to her bodyguard. On her twelfth rose she took a peek behind her shoulder to find Theon staring out in the horizon. His eyes half-close, and stuffing a yawn back behind his hand.

A small smile filled her expression. Compare to Aron's blue eyes and auburn hair, she loved to admire Theon's black hair and brown eyes. Perhaps, Cleo thought, the reason was that she hated Aron was because looking at him was a pain. She can't find anything attractive in him and she once wondered when they first meet, was he once eye-catching to her? Maybe not. If she did she was a fool.

She blinked, feeling memorized how the sunlight hit her bodyguard's face. The way the light and shadows work out his tan skin. The light making his eyes bit brighter.

She stuck in a breath and smelled the strong scent of the roses in her nostrils. Was she just falling in love with him just for his looks? She tilted her head in thought. As a princess she was a symbol of innocence that her people looked upon. To carelessly love a guard—her bodyguard in this case—was not the right thing in their eyes. To take many lovers was another thing that was disprove of. So she hated it.

Was there one man that could steal her heart from her? No, there couldn't be. An impossible task. As only royal families marry their children on arrange marriages or once their children grow attach to each other. Princesses marrying their 'true love' was only in stories that she once read, and only there. Not in real life, and would not happen in her time.

The proof was her arrange marriage to Lord Avon. Both the savior of her life and holding a dark secret about her. The dark secret that made her bite her lips around him and despising him at the same time. She hated the fact it gave him power over her. He could do as he please without any criticism from her.

She was not perfect if the people knew what had happen to her. Their image of their golden princess shattered forever.

The flush green bushes rustled from the breeze. Her faded pink dress also swirled around her knees. Somewhere hidden in sight a bird sang a musical with few others joining in.

She perked up when Theon closed his eyes. Her chance. Her smile grew on this through a small part of her felt pity for him. He wanted to be the best bodyguard to her father. What would her father think of him after this if he found out?

Found out that his assigned bodyguard lost sight of his daughter in his second day.

Casting aside the pity feeling she took many careful steps back, her eyes trained on his back, as she moved away. Satisfied that he won't turn around any second, she spin around—grab the edges of her dress, and ran away.

~1~1~1~1~1~

The first place she took refuge in was the empty meeting room in the second floor. It was the first room she thought of when she had entered the castle. Her father was with the other nobles men outside hunting game for tonight's supper. So she sat down and stare at the large map on the table.

The large map was the whole reign of Mytica. The whole land shared between three Kingdoms: Auranos, Paelsia, and Limeros.

Auranos—her homeland—in the south, Paelsia resting in the middle, and Limeros in the north. Only her Kingdom, decorated in golden ink, had careful and steady hands. Symbols of mountains, a proud deer, the castle, and the temple bolded on the paper. Simple dots for villages and towns spread far and wide in Auranos. Auranos' town laying between her home and the temple of Cleiona. A goddess her name came from.

Paelsia and Limeros were just bare. The ink done in black and rushed that they looked plain compare to Auranos. Nothing marking their towns or anything speculator. Expect for Paelsia that had only the mountains called the Forbidden Mountains. There between the golden kingdom and the dying one was the wildlands.

Cleo tried hard to think back on her studies of the other two Kingdoms. She was never the one to sit through her teacher's lectures with open eyes. The golden princess prefer spending her time having fun than sit through a lecture.

She frowned. She did recall how Limeros was an ice kingdom. Snow that covered every inch of their land that nothing could grow there. A problem that they shared with Paelsia. Only their neighbor could grow grapes said to make fine wine.

Her stomach twisted. Her mind fighting back that horrible memory that happened few days ago.

I don't want to remember that, Cleo thought through burning eyes.

It was too soon. Too horrible to recall when her nightmare already did that for her last night. No doubt it will continue so more. Because of that nasty incident she had Theon as her assigned bodyguard. She wanted pout at that thought.

That boy called—if she recalled right—Jonas wanted revenge on both her and her future husband, Aron. But how could he do such a thing on a protected Kingdom if he could manage past the wildlands? Not only that but there were guards and the walls that he had to get past through. Than he had to look for her without getting himself killed.

She deeply exhaled and wiped her eyes. She had to stop thinking about that. She need to do something to put it back in her mind. So she stood up and left the room to surround to Theon.

~64~64~64~64~64~

I don't know yet if I will create few more chapters for this pairing. But since in the book (if I remember good on it) it has been a week since Theon became Cleo's bodyguard before she visited her sister, so I thought of writing this. Along with the fact that there is few reviews that stated that the relationship between these two were too sudden. That, and there is no fanfics yet for these two. So... am I the first one? : D

Until next time…

~GreenFantasy64