DISCLAIMER~ I don't own anything. at all. If I owned the Blackrock Chronicles, Zoethian would be far more canon.

Zoey skipped through the muddy puddles on the asphalt, splashing the water all over her feet. Luckily there wasn't anyone on her side of the side walk, so she didn't have to worry about anybody else getting splashed. She had an umbrella, a red one with white polka-dots, that she held in one hand, but it wasn't doing her much good since she held it behind her as she skipped along. Suddenly her eyes caught sight of a purple umbrella a short distance in front of her. She ran up ahead a bit farther. It wasn't like she had anywhere to be soon, anyways. She finally caught up to the mysterious umbrella-holder, and it certainly wasn't anyone she had seen before.

He had brown hair with a blonde streak in it, and an odd, black face-mask around the lower half of his face. He was holding his umbrella carefully, so as to not let a drop of water touch him or the small book that was a light purple with a white stripe through the middle that he held in his right hand that he was reading. He looked to be about her age, or maybe a year older. The red-head decided, as most friendly people do, to say hello to this complete stranger. Perhaps it wasn't exactly the smartest idea, but she went with it nonetheless.

"HI!" She shouted across the empty street, to the boy as he slowly walked on the other sidewalk. He didn't look up. Zoey decided to try again, after all, he looked rather lonely.

"Hey! You in the Black scarf! HI!" She shouted again, and this the boy looked down for a moment, just to see if he was wearing his black scarf on this dreary day, which he was, and looked at the girl quizzically.

"Hello." He replied back, not as loudly as Zoey, but loudly enough so that she could hear.

"HI! I'm Zoey! Who are you?!" she shouted again, wanting to continue this conversation a bit further and possibly make a new friend. Rythian, on the other hand, wasn't much good at being friendly. He had the occasional conversation with his friend Nilesy, but that was about it. However, he did have manners, and he decided that the polite thing to do would be to respond.

"I'm-" Zoey couldn't hear anything else, for the loud noise of a single car driving through drowned out his reply. Zoey decided to run over to the other side, simply to avoid any more disturbances like that. Rythian was slightly panicked at first, i mean, some stranger had just walked up to him for no apparent reason, other than learning his name. He also realized that the girl was rather naive for somebody her age, assuming that she was his age. She was lucky that he wasn't somebody like those local ruffians, Sjin and Sips. He had had a few run-in's with them and the past, and hadn't escaped any of them without a few new bruises here and there.

"What did you say?" She asked him again, eagerly awaiting a response. Deciding to be a gentleman for once in his life, he replied again.

"Hello. I'm Rythian. Goodbye." I suppose that could be considered rude to most, but he didn't exactly have good "people skills" as some might say. He turned back to his book, thinking that the conversation was over.

"Weeellll, I'm Zoey, just in case you forgot! What's that book called?" She questioned him, and his irritation grew, and only slightly cracked his current mask of indifference.

"Oh, don't worry, I remembered." He said sarcastically. He walked a little bit faster to attempt to end the conversation once again. This only made the red-head more determined. she sped up to match his pace. He sighed in annoyance.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know you, and you don't know me, so let's just leave it at that, shall we?" He raised his voice only slightly, and then continued to walk along like before. The girl was slightly hurt by his comment, after all, she was only trying to be nice. She put a smile back on her face and shouted back at the boy.

"Well, you know that my name is Zoey, and I know that your name is Rythian! That's gotta count for something!" He stopped, and put his book in the some brown satchel-like thing, while still holding his umbrella in a careful position, and turned around. He gave another sigh, not one of irritation, but simply one of pure surrender.

"I suppose..." He said, and she walked back up to him with a blinding smile. Oddly enough, he could almost feel the corners of his mouth turning upwards in something that may have resembled a smile. The feeling wasn't all that foreign to him, obviously he had smiled before... Occasionally.

"Oh, and I guess if you want to know more about me, my favorite color is red, I absolutely love mushrooms, I'm a vegetarian, and my best friends name is Teep, and he wears this dinosaur hoodie everywhere and some people say it's weird but I think it's awesome!" she somehow managed to say that without taking another breath. Even Rythian was surprised by it.

"Well, I suppose a few facts about myself wouldn't hurt. My name is Rythian, my favorite color would have to be... purple, I like reading, I'm an omnivore, and my best- well, my friend's name is Nilesy." She laughed, but heard her phone ring. She pulled the red with white polka dotted phone out of the pocket of her black pants and held it up to her ear.

"Dad? Yeah... Yeah... really? Oh...okay. Bye." She put the phone back in her pocket and a slight frown was shown on her face. It didn't suit her very well, thought Rythian. She looked back to Rythian, and said, "Well, um, I have to get home, but I'll see you later sometime!" She began to run off in the opposite direction, splashing in every puddle as she went along. Suddenly Rythian remembered.

"Wait Zoey!" He called out and she stopped to turn around. "The Blackrock Chronicles!" He called out. At first, Zoey was confused. Rythian Explained. "My book! It's called the Blackrock Chronicles!" He had almost forgotten to answer her question from earlier. She smiled once again, and this time, even Rythian couldn't deny that he was grinning too.

Well... What do you think? I have been wanting to write something like this since forever, and it's finally done! Well, technically, it's finally begun, since this is not just a one-shot, that's right! There's more where this came from!

Alrighty, Reviews, suggestions, comments, constructive criticism, and questions are all allowed and welcome, so If you would like to do one of them, or even all of the above, feel free to do as such! Au revoir!