Cliché?

         I was alive!

         I was sure the feeling was quite like waking up. But, as of that moment, I hadn't yet actually gone to sleep.

         My author had just brought me to life.

         A thrill of joy traveled through my brand-new bones. I was alive, a real part of something! I didn't remember anything before that moment, but I knew. Somehow, I knew.

         Get a grip, I told myself. You need to be awake for the first part of the story. This is where all the foreshadowing is. So I pushed myself up off the dusty ground and looked about.

         A small room with a dirt floor, mud ceiling, and three walls. The open end was dominated by a long table, with a gap in the center to let people through. A booth, if I wasn't mistaken. A gangly man in patched clothes hawked his wares from behind the counter, comically oblivious to the crowd of people behind him.

         People. That reminded me. I turned back to my companions, all in various stages of waking up, and did a head count. Seven. Sounded right.

         We all stood at the same time and looked at each other, silent for a few moments. Then the tall, dark-haired youth said, "Well."

         "Oh," I said. "Introductions. I'm..." I searched my pristine but fully operative brain for the name.

         "Will," the pretty blonde guessed.

         "Luke," the old graybeard said.

         "Annoying Apprentice," Dark-Hair said.

         "Michael," I said with a shrug. "Close enough."

         "I like Annoying Apprentice better," Dark-Hair said.

         "Bet he's the Unlikely Hero," said the handsome, slender young man with pointed ears. "Too rough to be the Missing Royalty, too scrawny to be the Turncoat..."

         I glanced down at myself. I was scrawny, with too-big pants, tunic, and leather boots, all brown. Promising.

         A medium-sized young man in his late teens let out a relieved breath. "I'm just glad it wasn't me," he said.

         The rest of us looked at him oddly. He was more humanly handsome than Pointy-Ear, with short-cropped tawny hair and wide blue eyes. A multi-colored vest covered the maroon tunic, and his black pants tucked into shiny black boots. He made even his freckles look dignified.

         We all stared.

         "What?" he said, then looked down at himself.

         "What's your name?" Graybeard said.

         The young man reddened a little. "Alexander," he mumbled.

         "Missing Royalty," we said at the same time.

         "That wasn't too hard," Graybeard chuckled. I liked his beady little eyes, deep gray and set probably too far apart to be considered attractive. "Kerwin. The Mysterious."

         He was a little too short to be considered Mysterious, too, but I wasn't going to quibble with the Wise Old Magician's chance at fame.

         That left four of us left to decipher. Kerwin pointed at Pointy-Ear. "Let me guess..."

         Pointy-Ear smiled a little. "Inhuman Assistant, I take it." He bowed, making his soft green robe rustle. "Azaraatan Mapletree."

         Dark-Hair arched his brow. "Can we call you Rat?"

         Silence.

         Then Azaraatan Mapletree shrugged. "Why not?"

         The pretty blonde girl giggled, putting a hand to her mouth. "I've never heard anything so preposterous as calling an elf Rat," she said. "You're not supposed to call an elf that - it lessens his aura of mystery and power and--"

         "Oh, hush." Dark-Hair sat down against the wall, crossing his arms over his knees. "I don't want to be stuck with the rest of you, and I don't intend on playing by the rules."

         Again, the rest of us looked at him. "Turncoat," was the solemn pronouncement.

         He jumped up again, tugging at his all-black ensemble. "But I don't want to be the Turncoat!" he complained.

         "I think I'm glad he's the Turncoat," Alexander whispered to me. "Maybe one of us gets to kill him."

         "What's your name, lad?" Kerwin asked Dark-Hair, shooting Alexander what was supposed to be a stern look. He resembled Santa Claus far too much for it to really do much good.

         Dark-Hair yanked his hood over his head, hiding his scowling features. "Moran."

         Kerwin nodded solemnly, as if this destroyed all chance of Moran's hopes. "Bad luck," Alexander whispered. "Those M names are just bad luck..."

         Kerwin, taking over the roll of official introducer, turned to the blonde girl. "And you, my lady?"

         "Julianya." She dropped a curtsy that looked odd in her stable-boy's breeches. None of us even had to say it. Even if there had been a dozen other females in the room, Julianya simply oozed Feisty Princess.

         "Wait for it..." Moran muttered.

         "But you can call me Juli." Julianya simpered at us. Her button nose, dusted with freckles that looked as feisty as Alexander's looked royal, was distractingly upturned. You could see up to her brain, if necessary. If she had a brain to see up to. Even now I could envision our trouble with her - trying to fight like a man, eat like a man, swear like a man...

         "That's it then, I suppose," Kerwin interrupted my dismal thoughts. He dusted his hands on his hermitly gray robe and started to speak again.

         I raised my hand. "Um, Kerwin? The Mysterious?" I added hastily. "There were seven of us."

         Kerwin counted, then frowned. "Where..."

         "There he is," Moran said, pointing to the side without bothering to move.

         The rest of us turned. A small, slight figure was at the gangly hawker's side, apparently unnoticed. Bare feet pushed up on their toes, allowing a calloused hand to grab up at an apple in a basket.

         "Hey!" I shouted.

         The little figure whirled around and lost grip of the apple. The fruit fell to the ground and rolled, bouncing against the hawker's foot. He half-turned, and the thief pressed against the back wall.

         The hawker's eyes went from the thief, then slowly to the other six of us. He gave a lazy smile.

         "You must be the protagonists," he said. "We've been waiting for fifteen minutes for you to get on the move."

         I blinked. The thief scurried back over to us, scowling up at me. "Thanks for nothin'," he said, punching my arm with surprising force.

         I jumped away and rubbed the sore spot. "We'll have plenty of food."

         "I was a ruddy thief." He couldn't have been more than thirteen years old, with a mop of dusty hair and light green eyes. "Me backstory's one of 'unger. So bat off."

         I raised my hands and batted off. Whatever that meant.

         "What's your name, little one?" Kerwin asked for the third time.

         The thief turned his glower on the Wise Old Magician. "Trip, and I ain't no little 'un," he said.

         "Streetwise Helper," Rat said with a knowing nod.

         "All seven, then," Kerwin said. "I think it's time we moved out."

         I felt another little giddy jump of excitement. I had my team of seven!

         Kerwin, the Wise Old Magician.

         Alexander, the Missing Royalty.

         Rat, the Inhuman (elf) Assistant.

         Moran, the Turncoat.

         Julianya, the Feisty Princess.

         Trip, the Streetwise Helper.

         And me. Michael. The Unlikely Hero.

         As was tradition, I stood at Kerwin's elbow as we all exited the booth to head for our places. Julianya was chattering and Moran was telling her to shush up and Trip was telling them both to bat off, but the only thing I heard was the hawker's called farewell.

         "Good luck with saving the world!"