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Before - Legends [NaNo] Bramblebriar Lane - Tales from the Corps - OCs - Updated 12/21

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction- Before, Saga, and Beyond' started by TrakNar, Nov 28, 2011.

  1. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    Title: Bramblebriar Lane
    Author: Trak Nar
    Genre: Mystery, suspense, drama
    Characters: OCs
    Rating: PG-13: Language, suggestive situations

    Note: This is the NaNo fic that has crawled to a complete and utter halt beyond the third chapter. I'm gonna post it chapter-by-chapter in hopes that perhaps some commentary will entice my muse to return.



    [b]Prologue[/b]

    There isn?t the usual muddled murmur, the clinking of glasses, or the occasional spark of laughter from an off-color comment... Nary a sound, in fact. Heads bowed, they mull over their drinks in a quiet, wordless meditation. Behind the bar, the man?s eyes are on the black, glossy surface, a rag in his hands?but not moving. The dark-clad body before him has not moved, not even a twitch. A viewscreen mounted in the corner is on, but made no sound, and no eyes are directed toward it. The tavern is [i]quiet[/i], and Tuffass knows that it isn?t normal.

    Diffused late-afternoon sunlight streams through the cloudy window with dust dancing in its shaft, a finely-choreographed ballet in the mist. His drink sits before him, untouched. He notices that the young Duros fellow who was seated at a table across the bar had gone, though Tuffass had never actually [i]seen[/i] him get up and leave. His gaze returns to the bartender, who now has his back toward him. The dark-haired man still sits at the bar, head bowed and his shoulders rolled forward.

    Tuffass stands and is at the bar. The man?s blank gaze is on him, eyes hidden in dark circles, skin waxy and his mouth set in a thin line. His brow is furrowed and his black hair hangs over his forehead in jagged talons, stark against his chalky complexion. Tuffass glances down to the drink in his hand, then back to the man. His gaze is once again on the bar top, his shoulders rolled forward. Tuffass returns to his empty table as a thought strikes him as he struggles to remember exactly [i]when[/i] he had arrived at the bar and how long he has been here. And as he lifts his eyes from his own untouched drink, he sees the irritated faces of the patrons as they glare at him, as if he were some disgusting vermin, flat on its back in the middle of a fine meal, limbs flailing in a futile attempt to right itself.

    Tuffass casually shrugs, stands, and is outside of the establishment as he walks down the tree-lined street, the sun-dappled ferrocrete of the sidewalk soundless beneath his feet. He pauses on the corner of an intersection as that thought strikes him as it did before. And for one brief moment, he feels detached from the street corner around him, as though he were an outside spectator, watching the town through the glass of an aquarium. But, the feeling passes with the speeder that he had barely caught out of the corner of his eye, and Tuffass continues along the lane, the sunlit sky above hidden behind a leafy green canopy.

    As he walks, he notes the trees; tall, with broad leaves, the branches twisting from the thick gray-brown trunks like arms. They line the road, perfectly manicured, their old growth maintained with great care and they compliment the lawns perfectly. The white picket fences surround freshly-trimmed green grass and dense coniferous bushes, cut to almost precise squares. Between the bushes, Tuffass notes the brambles that snake out toward the sunlight. Twisted, gnarly things, bristling with thorns, he couldn't help but briefly recall the first time he had ever seen such vegetation?but where exactly that was eluded him. He shrugs it off and continues walking, and he can hear the thorns claw at his pant legs. Tuffass stops mid-stride and rips his leg free. He looks up the lane and notices more brambles. Brambles and briars, lining the road; they stretch out from the carefully-maintained lawns, and Tuffass has to stop and wonder.

    Why are there so [i]many[/i]?

    [hr]

    And thus the prologue of a fic that has ground to a halt. The present tense imperfect is intentional, and I will be doing some tense-changing for certain scenes. I have it written
     
  2. mavjade

    mavjade Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 10, 2005
    Great beginning!

    I too wonder why there are so many?!


    I'll tell you, I'm not usually one for OC centered stories but I decided a little while ago I wanted to try and get into them a little more and this seems very interesting.

    I know how awful it is when the muse decides to abandon us in the midst of writing... I hope yours comes back to you soon!


     
  3. earlybird-obi-wan

    earlybird-obi-wan Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Yes great beginning and enjoying your fanart too
     
  4. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    Well, all will hopefully be revealed when my muse returns.

    Anywho, since that prologue was quite short, I'm gonna toss up what is possibly my longest chapter that I have ever written...




    [b]Chapter One[/b]

    Anton Matronezzi gave the documents before him a cursory glance, and then leaned backward, his chair creaking as he cast his gaze to the ceiling and let out a loud groan. He was once again reviewing a case about a Duros petty officer who was reported missing. His team had been called upon to further review what was supposed to be a simple unauthorized absence case that the Kuati field office of the Republic Naval Criminal Investigation had been struggling with for almost a month now?a case that Anton had reviewed over and over, and he was convinced that he would not find anything new this time than he would the twentieth or fortieth time. The leads had simply gone cold. Hell, the leads hadn?t even gone [i]anywhere[/i]! He and his fellow agents had investigated the bar, they investigated the ship docks, they investigated the [i]ship[/i], rack-to-rack, tripping over each other in the confined corridors while combing every [i]inch[/i] of the [i]Foray[/i]-class blockade runner for clues and following leads that only served to complicate the case with extraneous cases of their own?a senior crewer had illegally acquired an officer?s ceremonial vibrosword from an Outer Rim post exchange?but nothing was found that shed any additional light on the missing petty officer.

    The fact of the matter was Cad Hepper had [i]vanished[/i]. And in a galaxy plagued with pirates and other fringers and mad men with powers that Anton didn?t possess, to simply vanish without a trace was not a very hard thing to do. Anton knew that the Duros petty officer was last seen in a cantina in the KDY shipyards that orbited Kuat. He also knew that no matter the planet, a cantina always attracted unsavory characters and the petty officer?s watering hole of choice was no exception. Just because he wore a uniform did not make him immune to a gang of thugs who were out looking for trouble. And according to the bartender who was working on the night that Cad Hepper disappeared, a local pirate gang was indeed in attendance. Perhaps Cad looked at them wrong and they decided to make sure that he will never make that mistake again.

    RNCI agents had never recovered a body, however. It may have been dumped into orbit, Anton surmised. Easiest way to dispose of a body; throw it out into space. He had seen numerous such cases when he worked for CorSec. Once a body was out floating amongst the myriad of debris in the vast vacuum, it was almost impossible to find.

    Adjusting his [i]lekku[/i] draped around his shoulders, Anton leaned forward on his elbows and massaged his forehead with his fingertips. Petty officer Cad Hepper must have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and his body was ejected into space with the rest of a ship?s garbage. That explanation may not bring any comfort to the petty officer?s family, but it would provide a modicum of closure, and more importantly, it should satisfy Anton?s boss.

    As if Anton?s musings were a cue, his boss strode into the office, a disposable datapad under one arm. He was a silver-haired Human with his face set in a permanent state of hardened irritation, as if the inside of his shoes were riddled with annoying grains of sand and tiny pebbles. Heron Lethroy Grimm had been the head of the small team of RNCI agents since Anton joined several years ago, and he could readily recall that his boss had the same lightsaber up his ass then as he did this morning. Grimm cleared his throat as he stalked across the room and toward his desk, the data pad tossed onto its surface with a loud [i]slap[/i].

    ?Got another one,? Grimm said sternly. He hit a button on the wall-mounted viewscreen and transmitted the information from the datapad to it. ?A Marine declared UA at 0500 this morning on Corulag. Gunnery Sergeant Tuffass failed to return from liberty.? An image flashed onscreen of a Gand in
     
  5. earlybird-obi-wan

    earlybird-obi-wan Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Nice dialogue and characters. I want to see more
     
  6. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    And I have finally decided to oblige. I watched Green Lantern: Emerald Knights earlier and it has started to entice my muse. Perhaps it needed to see some Kilowog action.

    Anywho, chapter two of the fic that has crawled to a complete halt...




    [b]Chapter Two[/b]

    The sensation of distant thunder follow soon after the burst that he only vaguely registered in his mind, like the afterimages of a flashbulb. Tuffass casts his gaze to the sky; he can finally see it. No trees block his view, no leaves obscured the sapphire blue from him. Not a cloud is in sight, yet the air seems dim and overcast. Walking along the gravel lane, he notes the rolling hills of waist-high green grass to his left, and the standing grove of trees to his right. The green is dark, dimmed by unseen clouds, and he can?t quite pinpoint where in the sky the sun actually [i]is[/i]. Perhaps it is behind the trees, dipping below the horizon...

    The stones are soundless as he walks across the gravel, and he happens upon an intersection; demarcated only by the tall street sign. Around the base, thorny brambles climb up the sign post, toward the route numbers that blur against the blue sky as Tuffass struggles to read them. He could not actually see any cross lane; only those flowing waves of green grass and what looks like some semblance of a path that snaked through the fields and over the hills. Yet, the sign post stands like a sentry, marking the roads that once were, faded memories of lanes traveled. Tuffass shrugs and continues along the dirt road, the wood growing darker.

    He notes the houses that line the road, set beyond the treeline, their candlelit windows beacons in the darkness. He could see no access to the roads, no driveways, no speeders parked beside the houses. Only narrow walkways that connect with the sidewalk along which he travels. The small yards, from what he can see in the darkness, are landscaped with precisely-cut coniferous bushes that rim the porches and stoops.

    Tuffass stops mid-stride in the pitch blackness, a steady rain falling. Before him stands a white house with a peaked roof, a covered porch... and those brambles in a tangled mass. Prickly, wretched briars, piled beside the steps, a few vines clinging to them like thorny tentacles. He ignores the unkempt weeds as the orange glow of the candles in the windows invites him up onto the porch and out of the drizzle. He [i]has[/i] to get out of the rain and away from the darkness. He could feel it creeping up toward him, a thick, roiling mass of shadows that thrives in the cold, drenching downpour, spreading across the opposite side of the lane like a black wall.

    The door behind Tuffass opens and a Twi?lek woman stands there, cast in the warm glow of the candles inside her home. ?Hurry! Get inside quickly, you?ll catch your death of a cold!?

    Tuffass enters the home and finds it dark, with the candles in the windows providing only a modicum of light, a soft, steady glow that keeps the darkness at bay. Beyond the open doorway, the darkness outside creeps up the front walk as the Twi?lek slams the door shut. Then, she slams it again. And again.

    [i]Wham![/i]

    [b]WHAM![/b]

    [b][u]WHAM![/u][/b]

    The sound hits Tuffass in waves and he stumbles backward as he feels himself pulled toward the door each time it is opened, and repulsed with each slam. He hears thudding and turns to see two children, a boy and a girl, run up the stairs to the second floor, their backs toward him. As they disappear in the warm darkness, Tuffass returns his gaze to the Twi?lek and nods in thanks.

    The Twi?lek smiles, though her brow is furrowed with worry. ?We can set you up on the couch. You?ll need to wait til tomorrow to go outside.?

    Tuffass nods in understanding and he notices the potted plants on a table beside the black window. The candle?s light seems absorbed by the twisted black shadows of thorny briars that snake from the pot and over the table?s edge. He looks again to the Twi?lek, who has not moved from her spot near the door, though she keeps a distance
     
  7. earlybird-obi-wan

    earlybird-obi-wan Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Nice action in your update=D=