Dear Readers: Back in Greece! Where Cloe is set to meet Prof and Charliese...

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Scene 9: Life to Be Written

A.D. 2015

Cloe calmly crossed the street toward the couple at the shaded patio table.

Miss Primor saw her first and waved. Prof promptly jumped out of his chair for a huge hug. “Cloe! At last, you grace Greece with your presence!” he exclaimed.

She smiled and expressed how good it was to see him here. Once he finally let go, she leant in for a tame one-armed hug from Charliese. They were still practically strangers, after all—not yet on bear-hug terms. And really, Cloe had a hard time picturing Charliese giving anyone a bear hug; it just seemed too inelegant, too primitive for her.

For the next hour or so, they gushed about the gorgeous country, gorged themselves on its famous salad and fried slabs of cheese, and collectively concluded that there was no better way to spend a summer day. And by the end of it, Cloe nearly began to believe that she might have gotten to know Miss Primor as a human being, maybe, just a little bit. The personality beneath the cool porcelain veneer.

Trevor needed a visit to the restroom, after one too many beers, for which his fiancée called him out. “Well, being the only man at the table, I’ve got to carry you ladies’ weight in liquor,” he rationalized. “One can’t lunch in Europe without paying more for booze than food!”

Cloe tensed as he stood to leave. Perhaps she could see Charliese as a person now, but that did not mean that she felt prepared to talk to her one-on-one, woman-to-woman. Or girl-to-goddess, as it were.

“So what’s bothering you, Cloe?” Charliese inquired.

Caught off guard and confused, Cloe reached for her glass to gulp down the rest of her drink. There was not enough water to put off responding forever. What the hell was she talking about? She set the empty cup back down. “What do you mean?”

Charliese cocked her head thoughtfully, a thick swath of platinum hair spilling over her shoulder—her long locks were let half-down today, loosely clasped with a couple of diamond barrettes. “There’s a lingering unhappiness about you,” she candidly observed.

Cloe’s first defensive impulse was to lie. And yet she knew somehow—that grey gaze cut through bullshit like a guillotine.

She had to come up with an answer, and it had to be at least a little honest. “I was just… reading over rejections of my manuscript, on the flight here,” she confessed, opting to bring in a bit of humor with her next words. “In case I could find a hidden acceptance, reading between the lines.”

Miss Primor’s shapely lips curved up into a silent laugh.

Cloe shrugged uneasily. “So yeah—that tends to get me down.”

“Don’t let it,” Charliese instantly replied. “Make it lift you up.”

Cloe creased her brows over a dumbfounded stare.

“Tell me, Cloe—what’s the harshest, most painful criticism you’ve received about your trilogy?”

“That my characters don’t come to life,” Cloe answered, too quickly. The question had just been too easy to answer. That critique had been burned, branded into her brain ever since she’d first read it. The ultimate insult against the human lives she’d spun into her stories. Especially her protagonist, Prince Eldor of the ebon eyes, his heart of gold and endless depths of virtue in his soul… she couldn’t even stand to think of it. To think that he and all of her beloved characters had died upon the page. The pain cut deeper every time it crossed her mind.

Miss Primor leant in, bracing her alabaster elbows on the table. “Then take that pain, and turn it into power,” she advised, her steely eyes sparkling and serious. “The power of a pen in your hand.”

What the royal fuck? This woman was nuts.

“You were born to write,” the woman continued. “You have a gift; a gift more powerful than you believe.”

Had to be nuts, or drunk. But then, thought Cloe to herself, why did she seem so absolutely sober—and so absolutely right?

Ugh. Those hypnotic eyes were probably fooling Cloe into giving any credence to the words. “How would you know?” she blurted.

“Because human belief always falls short of truth.”

Wow, that’s so profound and probably completely correct! was Cloe’s gut reaction. Hypnosis was apparently a real thing, a second voice reflected in her mind.

“Trust me,” Charliese insisted, as if her mesmerizing gaze had not already done the job of winning Cloe’s trust. “You’ve a real gift. And in fact, the more pain you harness, the more passion you put behind it, the more powerful it will be.”

That totally makes sense, a chorus of voices in Cloe’s head chimed.

“Here—indulge me in a little whimsy, won’t you?” Miss Primor invited her, reaching into her patent leather purse and pulling out a silver ballpoint. “Take this pen, and write down something that would utterly defeat both sources of your deepest pain.”

Cloe blinked. “Both?”

“Your literary rejections and lack of a love life.”

Well, that wasn’t blunt or anything. Cloe shifted in her seat. Those storm-greys really didn’t miss a thing. At no point over lunch had the chat turned to Cloe’s relationship status or romantic history. That tale must’ve been written on her face, for just a fleeting second, when Prof had mentioned being the only man here. He hadn’t meant to highlight Cloe’s singlehood, but a lifetime of aloneness must’ve flashed in Cloe’s eyes just then. And Charliese must have perceived it. Seriously? Wow.

In any event, Prof was returning, looking quite relieved.

Miss Primor leant in closer. “I know you'll come up with the perfect thing,” she whispered, “to prove the critics wrong. To conquer, to reject every rejection you’ve endured.”

That would be fucking awesome, Cloe thought delightedly. If only she had any clue just what this ‘perfect thing’ might be.

Charliese passed a clean paper napkin across the table, placed it in front of Cloe with the silver pen on top. Spoke with all the earnest grandeur of a monarch issuing the most momentous command of her reign: “Don’t wait for your life to be written—write it.”

And then, just like that, the completely perfect thing popped into Cloe’s mind. She swiftly scribbled it down, inwardly snickering at just how whimsical the words were. But no matter. She had written them, for whatever they were worth. Most likely nothing. But whatever.

“I hope you girls aren’t passing notes behind my back…” Trevor quipped as he sat back down, noticing Cloe folding the napkin away.

“I just invited her to try this pen,” Charliese explained, truthfully enough. She picked the pen up after Cloe set it down and smiled at her, the smile of a secret shared. “It writes so well, don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes! I love this line of pens,” Trevor effused before Cloe could even reply, grabbing the thing to scrawl randomly on some napkins, for his own nerdy-cute form of fun. “So smooth. Best ink ever made.”

Soon afterward, Cloe had to get going. She was on the job after all. They shared heartfelt farewells, and bear hugs all around.

Cloe could not have been more wrong about Prof’s fiancée. Not only was Miss Primor a real person, capable of real hugs, as she now learned today. She was, moreover, capable of real human connection. Cloe had formed a connection with Charliese more swiftly and more strongly than she ever had, with any former stranger, in her life.

She considered that connection as she roamed the streets of Athens. Who was this woman, anyway? Trevor had never given Cloe any details as to how they’d met, and Charliese hadn’t shared much of her background over lunch. Cloe found herself hoping that they’d meet soon again, if only so that she could ask these sorts of questions.

Well—that’d have to be another time. For now, she had to focus on her job. She reached into her bag for a map. Bent her head to find it as she turned a corner. Walking straight into a solid hunk of man.

“Sorry…!” she gasped, lifting her gaze to meet his.

And felt her jaw suddenly drop to the core of the earth.

The stranger smiled, warmly. Hotly. “Don’t be.”

Could this be who he appeared to be?? No chance in hell, she knew.

His ebon eyes, deep and brooding, searched hers. “Are you lost?”

“Yeah,” she spilled. Shit! Pull your shit together, stupid.

Somehow, Cloe did. Her fingers found the map, whipped it out smoothly from her bag with a self-assured grin. “Oh—not anymore.”

He nodded, evidently amused. But not at her expense, it seemed; his smile looked too virtuous to be derisive. “That’s a very nice map.”

That’s a very nice bod. She cleared her throat, averted her gaze from the contours of muscle visible beneath his shirt, to the map in her hands. A nice map indeed—great detail, clear to follow. She was surprised he’d noticed, though. “The perks of being a travel-writer. Home base provides good stuff to make our jobs a little easier.”

He arched a brow, apparently impressed or something. “So you’re on the job? Well, I’d best not keep you. I do have a question, though…”

She looked up at him. He was literally, literally straight out of a storybook.

“…does your research involve reviewing restaurants?” he asked, tilting his head ever so slightly. His dark hair caught a glint of sun, gleamed like a starlit sea, black as the night but twice as bright. “The Mega Bretania has some of the city’s finest dining, if you’d like to try.”

Holy crap. The fanciest hotel in Athens, on Syntagma Square.

He smiled again, even more hotly. “I’ll be there at eight.”

What just happened. What just happened. Back in freakout mode, as soon as he had left, Cloe fumbled through her bag again. Pulled out the crumpled napkin, marked with scribbles from the silver pen.

Before unfurling it, she paused—she had a question for him, too. “Hey!” she called after the glorious stranger.

He stopped and turned. With all the presence of the hero of an epic movie, turning to face the audience in a climactic scene.

Cloe swallowed down her awe. Played cool. “You got a name?”

His hottest smile yet. A hero’s smile. “Call me Eldor.”

Of course. Of course that was his name. She’d known it from those eyes, and she believed it now. He was the valiant warrior, exactly as she had imagined him. The protagonist of her most precious creation.

He was a character of hers. And he had come to life on earth. His very existence proved her harshest critic wrong, in the most epic way imaginable. And his dinner invite marked the end of her lackluster love life—or lack thereof, till now.

He disappeared around a corner. Cloe looked down to read what she’d recently scrawled. The perfect thing, just as Charliese had said:

Today, Eldor will walk into my life.

Bam.

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Sooo Cloe wrote something down, and it seems to have suddenly come true in real life... hmmm. What's up with that?!? ;)

Any ideas what this means? Guesses as to what's coming up? ... This, dear readers, is where the story of the Fates in the modern day really gets started :D

Next scene, Atria arrives in Athens... And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)