“I’m Leo, nice to meet you,” the man replied.

“No kidding?” she asked.

“No kidding,” he responded, as he placed his card on the table in front of him.

As he did this, she drew back into the hoodie she was wearing and lean back into her seat. Suddenly, a figure appeared, an older man. Though he did not seem truly to be present, he did seem to be a body of substance, despite having seemed to appear out of thin air. If nothing else, his words seemed to resonate from his mouth as he spoke. “I am the curator, I have gathered you here, but the others have yet to arrive. Please be patient. It is at least fortunate that you two lions have a chance to spend time with each other before we begin, is it not… your natures compliment each other well after all.,” and as quickly as he arrived he’d disappeared. Cleo, who had already experienced these theatrics once already, did not want to be bothered with them again, at least not until everyone was here. She’d resigned herself to wait it out, she was at least curious about the mystery of it all.

Before today she had been a waitress at a local sports bar, hoping to make enough to save up for the college she wanted to attend. She could have gone to a local college while she worked, or attended a junior college for next to nothing. But the college she wanted to attend was far away and very expensive. They had offered her a partial scholarship, but even with that her parents could hardly afford it. So she made up her mind to take the year and pitch-in. Her parents could at least take care of her, so she had no expenses to speak of. More over she was doing quite well with tips, the bar was a busy one and the men seemed to fall over her. In fact, she’d gotten a raise after the first month, almost twice her initial salary. Her boss said it was because business had doubled since she arrived, and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t thinking of leaving. But she imagined that he had a more personal provocation towards the latter desire, beyond his business interests. The fact was she was making an obscene amount of money for a waitress, which made the other waitresses who felt some what jealous start to talk. particularly over the way many of the men seemed to part so freely and liberally with their money.

Cleopatra Adula was a 19 year old woman who studied hard and kept mostly to herself. she had grown more popular in her high school years, though through no fault or effort on her part. But for the most part she was coy, bordering on shy, and received much vitriol from the other girls for reasons she had no control over. Still, she didn’t allow herself to be distracted by any of it. Her mother had been an Egyptian native of Nubian descent. Her father an American archaeologist turned, museum director, of non-specific Caucasian descent… as he would say, since he was an orphan. She was more or less a mulatto child, with a bright future ahead of her. That is until her father was involved in an auto accident which left him paralyzed. The insurance would cover the high risk operations he elected to undergo, so most of their savings were wiped out, including her college funds. However, the operations had restored partial mobility above the waist, allowing her father to return to work nearly two years after the accident, as assistant director. With his former assistant now ascended to his old position, in his absence.

One night, after Cleo had closed out and readied herself to go home, she’d noticed a man coming out of the women’s room. She decided to check on it just in case, mostly because of the strange look he gave her as he left, pausing in front of it as he did. She found nothing save for a strange card on the counter top… upon it were the words “WyldCard“, in bold black lettering. As she exited the restroom, card in hand, she found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. The hallway led her to a room with many exits, where after some looking about, she decided to have a seat. She set the card down on the table in front of her, not quite knowing what else to do with it, and the man appeared to her. The same spiel more or less, so she waited. But now they were waiting together.

“So, that happened before then?” he asked her, judging as much by her lack of interest in his sudden appearance. or perhaps it was more the way she drew back as if she couldn’t be bothered with things that didn’t concern her.

“Some kind of message system I guess, looks to be triggered by the cards. Seems like they were meant to be some kind of invitation,” she explained, as if she had figured it all out but couldn’t careless. But somehow he doubted that was true. Some part of all this certainly excited her, but she wanted to play it cool.

He admired the way she seemed totally unfazed by it all, and found himself even more intrigued by who she was than the situation slowly unfolding around them. At this moment her attitude seemed appropriate to her name sake, He even found himself portraying her as the ancient queen of Egypt in his mind. He could see her wrapped in gold and jewels, half-naked of course. He had always imagined Egyptians as desert people, wearing no more than was absolutely necessary. In this way she differed greatly, because her outfit was not revealing in the least. Still he could imagine from the general shape of her, and the face she was once again concealing, the face of a goddess. “If you’d forgive my curiosity, your Majesty,” He joked, “I’d like to know where you’re from. In fact, if I’m not being too forward, I’d like to know everything about you.”