Odette sat at the bar of the local eatery called the Mystic Grill with a bottled beer sitting in her hand with her laptop in front of her, she was supposed to be meeting Alaric but he had gotten caught up at school marking some papers apparently. He had asked whether she wanted to help out in order to speed things up but Odette turned him down and told him she'd wait for him and get some writing done as she had left her school days behind her the day she had graduated from college. So whilst Alaric had been off playing the history teacher Odette had done the whole tourist thing, well as much as she could do in a town as small as Mystic Falls. The only real productive thing Odette had managed to do was find a potential place to live as whilst crashing on Alaric's couch was suiting her fine for now it wasn't a long term plan.

"The dying swan, when years her temples pierce, In music-strains breathes out her life and verse, And, chanting her own dirge, tides on her wat'ry hearse. Phineas Fletcher, I'm impressed…"

Odette resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the man who reading the quote by Phineas Fletcher she had tattooed on her back, people just couldn't help themselves when it came to reading it. And part of it was Odette's fault for getting a tattoo in the first place and having her back exposed so people could read it. But the man could have at least read it to himself! "Well I'm impressed that you know who Phineas Fletcher is, not many people do…"

"Well I'm not most people." The mystery man said as he sat down next to Odette and she was surprised to see that the guy who had been reading her back was handsome. More than that actually, he was very handsome with his dark hair and blue eyes dressed in all black, armed with the leather jacket that told Odette that he was one of those bad boy types. Good thing she kind of had a boyfriend then. "So what's with the tattoo?"

"Special meaning." Odette vaguely replied shutting her laptop before taking a sip of her drink.

"I assumed that since you got it tattooed on your body." The stranger said and the look he gave Odette told her that he wasn't leaving until his answer had been questioned. There must have been only a few years difference in age between the two of them not that Odette minded as most of the people she associated herself with older than her.

"If you really must know it relates to my name, well the swan part not the dying bit." Odette admitted, preparing herself to answer the age old question of why she was called Odette of all things instead of some normal name like Sara or Grace. Made her grateful that she had a beer in front of her as it wasn't the most pleasant of stories.

"Bella Swan?" The stranger questioned and Odette couldn't help but laugh, that was a new one and hopefully that was the first and last time that anyone would think that her name was the same as the girl from the twilight book saga. It was weird that Odette found herself enjoying her companions company as she wasn't usually one for striking up conversations in bars with strange men who she had just met but here she was.

"Funny and kind of close, my name is Odette."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. I was named after the white swan in the play swan lake, it was a favourite of my mother's…" Odette admitted, not giving the full story about how her mother wanted to name her that but her father disagreed until her mother died during childbirth. As a tribute to his wife and to honour her Frederick Saltzman named his newborn daughter Odette."

"Beautiful name… So Odette, I haven't see you around before." The stranger said motioning for the bartender to get him a drink.

"That's because I've just arrived here, yesterday in fact and i was a bit preoccupied with a few things which didn't give me time to get the lay of land but i did that today and somehow landed up at bar with a drink in my hand. Only part of my life that seems a bit of a regular reoccurrence." Odette dismally noted as the bartender returned with a glass of what Odette took to be scotch.

"Finally someone who thinks the same way i do, I'm Damon." The man began finally revealing his name. "Damon Salvatore."

"Pleasure."

"So what brings you to Mystic Falls of all places then Odette?" Damon questioned.

"Why are you so interested?"

"Well I'm part of the town's welcoming committee so it's part of my job to ask." Damon replied and Odette didn't believe him in the slightest and the look he wore on his face told her that he didn't believe that either. Odette found herself becoming rather interested by Damon so she decided to humour him although she wouldn't tell him the real truth as to why she was here.

"I decided to take a little break from my life and a small town in Virginia sounded pretty good to me, figured I could get away from the stress of the city for a while. Might do me and my work some good…" Odette lied although part of it was true, well the whole her getting away might do her work some good as she was kind of stuck in a bit of a rut when it came to her writing. Two hours of writing she did today and she had emerged with nothing substantial.

"You decided to take a break from life and you wound up here in Mystic Falls? Then I suggest you keep drinking." Damon advised.

"I'll bare that in mind."

"So you mentioned work? What exactly is it you do?" Damon asked.

"I'm a writer."

"Really? Have I read anything you've written?"

"The twilight series, well I'm guessing you've read it as you know who Bella Swan is. I chose her surname based on my first name because as you've seen I really like swans." Odette quipped and Damon chuckled. "Okay, in all seriousness I wrote Harry Potter and I pay some lady to go around and pretend to be me so I can live in anonymity…"

"Very funny." Damon retorted.

"Thanks, I try and to answer your question I don't think you've read anything I've written and even if you did, you wouldn't know as my books have been published under a different name. I don't put my name on my work, I use a pen name instead." Odette said.

"Why not?"

"You ask a lot of questions, has anyone ever told you that?" Odette asked.

"And you try to evade a lot of questions." Damon retorted.

"Personal reasons, ones I'm not willing to discuss with strange men who I've just met in a bar." Odette replied taking a swing of her drink. "And before you ask I'm not telling you my pen name."

"I'll get it out of you eventually."

Odette scoffed. "I'd like to see you try."

"Well it's a good thing for me that you've decided to take a little break from your life in my small little town…"