Click…  Click…  Click.  The echoing of heels against cement rang out, a comforting sound in a world of such unknown.  Los Angeles…  An interesting place, but one unexplored by this one young woman.  But exploration really wasn’t something that she was completely focused upon.  Well what was she focused on?  Riches?  Fame?  Glory?  Renown?  No…  Her aim and her desire was much more simple than that.  She had a quest, and it was a quest that she was determined to see through.

Eyes alight, she scanned the streets in silence.  This had seemed so much more simple and straight forward when she was storming out of the house back at home…  She was going to come here…  Succeed in what she came to do…  Right? 

A hand went idly to her satchel, slowly drawing out a small brown leather bound book.  Tears sprang to her eyes as she shook her head.  Not here.  Stepping quietly off onto a side street, she sighed.  No matter how few people were on the street, it still seemed like too many.  Leaning quietly against the side of the building, she felt the coolness of the concrete against her back.  Tears stung the corners of her eyes once again as she drew the book from the satchel once more.  Running her fingertips over its simple cover, she felt a single tear slip forth from her carefully constructed calm facade.  Biting her lip softly she opened the front cover and allowed her eyes to hungrily drink in the words upon the front of the page.  Hope…  Directly under it read, Mama Phoenix.  Now Octavia didn’t understand what that meant, but she referenced it a number of times.  Over the past week she had read this small book cover to cover a number of times.  And there…  At the back was the piece that gave her…  And the thought brought a soft chuckle from her lips…  Hope. 

A letter from a woman she didn’t even know…  But it held news that Octavia had latched onto so hard that she came to this unknown place…  Alone.  Back home she felt that it was so right, and this was the right path…  And now?  She simply felt like a lost little girl.  She knew she should have waited…  Should have stopped to think for only a moment… 

Should have listened to her brother. 

She knew better…  He had never led her wrong, not once in all their years.  Every single one of her harebrained schemes had seen his hand in helping either save her from them or make them a reality…  And now…  Now was the first time she had chosen to buck that and go her own way.  A soft sniffle was uttered and she ran her hand quickly over her face just as she heard footsteps pass her small sanctuary.  Trembling, she tried to get herself under control even as her eyes raked over the short but sweet letter.  They moved until they found the words that were circled, highlighted, underlined twenty times… 

She is alive.

It was for this reason that Octavia had found her way to these shores.  Her mother, Hope, was rumored to be alive.  Her last known position had been here…  She had once held the highest position one could have, but then she just…  Vanished.  No body found to tell of death.  No reported sightings…  Only the word of this stranger.  A rumor…  A whisper…  A hope.

Octavia gave a soft shuddering gasp as she pulled herself back under control hearing footsteps stop.  Shrinking back against the wall, her gaze rose to meet whatever had stumbled upon her presence.  In them shone defiance and anger in the tears.   At them?  At what she held in her book? She slammed it shut and steeled her for the next step in this haphazard journey.  Never had she had to stand on her own two feet, but… There was a first for everything.  And now?  She would face it.  Would she succeed? Only fate knew and only time would tell.