This page conserves the character fiction forum of the Agora forums. The posts have been left unformatted to make it easier for users to copy them here and paste them into the new forums.

Oren Itanooren12/10/08 18:25View
Missy12/10/08 22:22View
The backstory of Vulpes.Vulpes12/11/08 01:46View
Erica KesselErica Kessel12/11/08 07:52View
Missy's Story.. a Do-over and another ChapterMissy12/11/08 22:38View
UsrBinPerl12/11/08 23:48View
oren12/11/08 23:57View
Kwekwe's BackstoryKwekwe Karu12/12/08 01:02View
UsrBinPerl12/13/08 00:35View
Eternal SunsetMissy12/13/08 12:19View
Kit Ristow12/14/08 00:01View
ShyMathys12/14/08 00:27View
MasksAlissa12/14/08 00:58View
Lorae12/14/08 01:24View
UsrBinPerl12/14/08 22:07View
Missy's Story Continued..Part 3Missy12/16/08 08:43View
Missy's Story Part 4: Innocence ShatteredMissy12/16/08 18:34View
Missy's Story Part 5: Innocence AnnihilatedMissy12/18/08 17:16View
Small DangersVox12/18/08 21:36View
Saint of The Abyss: Part 1Luciferiel12/19/08 05:21View
Zero....-1Justa Zero12/19/08 17:38View
Zero....1Justa Zero12/19/08 18:26View
Óðr’s Daughter. Chapter I: A Guiding DreamAsil Karu12/20/08 02:39View
Omega To Alphaerinnic12/23/08 16:49View
Her Bloody Tears [-Past Event-]Methias12/23/08 18:09View
Lost Kitsune - A Shattered MindKiera12/25/08 18:51View
Usr's story Part IVUsrBinPerl12/27/08 20:34View
The EssexHeir Maelstrom12/29/08 04:23View
Kwekwe's shameKwekwe Karu12/30/08 18:11View
Joint Round Robin Fic Anyone...?erinnic12/30/08 19:07View
God Was On Her Lips As She Diederinnic01/02/09 23:31View
Love and Betrayal - A New Beginningkessjuliesse01/03/09 13:46View
The Diary of Cody Woodhencodywoodhen01/05/09 21:35View
Missy's Story Part 6: Innocence AbductedMissy01/07/09 06:23View
Cursed BladeYannis_Martynov01/08/09 21:27View
Story Thread: Community Round Robin Ficerinnic01/09/09 23:25View
The demon withinCanly Fargis01/11/09 16:14View
Ziau- CoLA's Very Own CasanovaZiau01/13/09 02:09View
Twisted Attentionserinnic01/21/09 20:34View
Inspiration- music and roleplayZiau01/26/09 08:01View
Compilation! Where were you when it all happened?Ziau01/28/09 09:12View
The Clock Struck MidnightMalice Ashdene01/28/09 22:31View
With Precision- a poem by Kelly Welch A.k.A Ziau Jua.Ziau01/29/09 04:36View
Alisa's dicovery of a new world (character sheet + story)Alisa Draconia01/30/09 19:17View
The Shadow Stepper- Ziau the Enshadowed.Ziau02/01/09 07:26View
Krista Lemon arrives to the streets of Lost AngelsKrista02/03/09 00:09View
Back Story Upto the Excile of Rune.RuneCrimson02/03/09 21:59View
War with the Brood, war with the Coven, and the Pack.Ziau02/07/09 04:11View
-- Halcyon's Backstory --Halcyon Nacht02/08/09 00:22View
Planer/Exonar family (aka, Erinyse, Khalan, Viridian, Cummere, Selena)Cummere Mayo02/08/09 03:53View
Kit's BackstoryKit Ristow02/10/09 18:40View
Eyes in the DarkKeyla02/11/09 09:47View
Surfacing Part ILlyr02/13/09 22:21View
Surfacing Part IILlyr02/13/09 22:35View
Tama-Chan: A Cat's Story (Tamara's background)Tamara02/17/09 07:35View
Project: A map of Post Apocalypse North AmericaTamara02/17/09 19:21View
Dreamtime RevelationsWinter02/19/09 18:08View
Reaver-the echo of the BlackwindAntiZero02/23/09 00:43View
On the Origin of SpeciesTamara02/25/09 22:38View
ConfessionKit Ristow02/26/09 01:39View
Personnel File: Pointe, Zsuzsanna C. (Inactive, Deceased)Su Pointe02/26/09 03:32View
Malice, in a Different Kind of WonderlandMalice Ashdene02/27/09 18:07View
The Dark of InspirationKit Ristow03/01/09 21:42View
Jheric: CrucifiedKayle Ashdene03/03/09 10:53View
It's my lifearsene_Braveheart03/05/09 18:18View
The Tradgedy of the HybridDigital Enigma03/29/09 07:09View
The Sin of Wrathmolly switchblade04/02/09 21:28View
Golden BoyEphran Ehrler04/15/09 06:12View
Story About A GirlAesendria04/24/09 15:34View
Climaxe by Smith and WessonSloan04/28/09 06:19View
My new project ATTENTION Russian Characters!Ziau05/01/09 06:42View
**NSFW** A Typical Tuesday Night for MissyMissy05/06/09 20:48View
Post your profile links!Cortero Landar05/07/09 10:25View
Making Logan SufferAesendria05/12/09 07:09View
Jeanne VarunJeanne Varun05/14/09 08:24View
The Vanguard's True PurposeLogan05/16/09 01:03View
Cortero's Infernal ArmorCortero Landar05/16/09 06:52View
Bookstore SurpriseAesendria05/16/09 23:16View
Post your profile links if you have in-story info in them!Cortero Landar05/18/09 10:33View
PromisesAesendria05/24/09 02:44View
Cyber Evolution Bios, Anur Seda, Cyber Reaper, and Commander of CETheassassin06/08/09 11:28View
Was any of it real?Youko_Giha06/12/09 15:28View
A shift in prioritiesLogan06/17/09 04:21View
Going homeLudvig06/17/09 19:10View
'Ren in Japanoren06/18/09 23:11View
Thelma across the boardThelemaJuliesse06/26/09 15:09View
Pre-fiction: How Kayteear got here.Kayteear07/15/09 16:43View
Story TimeCharissa07/17/09 19:03View
Pack Airship RP.Tai07/27/09 02:49View
My CharacterLilith1308/05/09 22:34View
LilithLilith1308/06/09 09:30View
The Haunter in the DarkShadow08/14/09 21:50View
The Flying HeadsKwekwe Karu08/16/09 16:52View
Why selling coffins is impossible in CoLAZiau08/23/09 04:14View
Paint it red!Ziau08/23/09 07:51View
Young Cowards.Ziau08/23/09 08:28View
Great video for RPers and people passionate about writing.Ziau09/05/09 08:55View
Dux - 264 BCDux09/10/09 18:41View
The Thing at South Gate SanitariumShadow09/15/09 22:09View
♪♫ Do you wanna RP my avatar ♪♫Kayteear09/17/09 14:45View
Jessica's MotherJessica Susser09/21/09 04:19View
Ziau Challenged me to. NSFWChasityDawes09/21/09 07:17View
The Divine Machine.................Theassassin09/21/09 22:29View
I Bleed my Blood for Myself.Ziau09/22/09 22:28View
Cronicle of a deathKayteear09/24/09 01:34View
"Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself"DavidJoshua Artful09/26/09 17:07View
Old Versus NewDigital Enigma09/27/09 20:28View
The Shadowed Order, The Eternal Order, Ordo MachinaTheassassin10/06/09 06:55View
Elamyrath's HistoryElamyrath10/10/09 00:52View
The here, the now, the dead. The Minus.TheMinus Ziskey10/10/09 12:41View
Before bed ritual.Amy Guisse10/17/09 04:13View
Alone?Ike10/18/09 15:34View
IS this High School again?Theassassin10/24/09 12:49View
Sidhe vs DrowOrlok Lectar10/29/09 04:08View
Daddy bluesarsene_Braveheart11/17/09 19:01View
Chronicles of SIEagentlyseria11/22/09 12:27View
The Lady In Black(A Drokan Exile Twisted Love Story)AntiZero11/29/09 06:36View
The growing Darkness.Leirain Koray12/01/09 11:04View
The lycanKayteear12/01/09 16:00View
City of Lost Jackman: The Untold Hollywood BlockbusterAntiZero12/02/09 07:11View
Coming home for christmas ..Kes12/10/09 22:17View
Bunneh Vs. Lich, DBZ styleKarsha Yutani12/14/09 11:59View
A FarewellRoland12/16/09 20:50View
Of Death and RebirthDigital Enigma12/21/09 20:14View
The Story of ReocoReoko Farspire02/06/10 20:47View
Homecoming......... The Story of Orpheus DarkfoldOrpheusDarkfold03/11/10 02:27View
The Story of Orpheus Part 2OrpheusDarkfold03/13/10 23:15View
Who owns who?Kayteear03/22/10 22:03View
Missing the Oceanricercar03/23/10 22:27View
Letter to the editor: Manners in LATink03/25/10 16:58View
Chasity BackstoryChasityDawes06/14/10 19:43View
Something Black and Violent...DavidJoshua Artful06/19/10 22:23View
Doctor Visiterinnic07/12/10 04:26View
Gabby Perdidevacantghost07/19/10 04:42View
PosterMessageDate
UsrBinPerlUsr lay sleeping in bed in her junk filled makeshift apartment she had pulled together in the abandoned high school. She had been cleaning it up, slowly, but as she collected more and more books, electronics crap and other things to make a "home" things like clean sheets and sweeping up the pile of construction debris in the corner had taken a lower priority. The dirty sheets on her bed had pulled up around her, twisting around her long limbs. Her naked sleeping body drenched the mattress with sweat even though the room was chilly. A moan escaped her lips as the nightmares of her past, long held at bay by her border-line alcoholism, began to slither into her mind.

-------------------------------------------------

Father Michael Emmett sat at his desk as the gaggle of 7th grade girls filtered into his classroom for 6th period Latin I. Twenty one in all, the last one to enter and find her seat was his favorite. A lanky, somewhat bookish girl, Deidre Olivia McDonnough rushed into the room, her arms full of twice as many books as the other girls carried.

Father Emmett looked at Deidre with a smile. He had met the mother, Olivia, at a Parents Association meeting 2 years earlier. Emmett had spent his earlier years in Rome and immediately recognized her accent as that of an Italian national, even though her English was practically flawless. He later learned that her Latin was flawless as well. Deidre's mother had long worked as some sort of historian at the Nunciature of the Holy See down in DC and Emmett had run into her during a Latin language symposium. She was a charming woman, intelligent, graceful and dignified.

Unfortunately, with the exception of her mother's intelligence, Deidre took after her father, all the way down to her gazelle like frame. Father Emmett had met him once, and only once. Michael Timmet McDonnough had none of the social graces of his wife.

A lean, tall, dark haired man, his face had a mean and jagged scar from his eye to his chin that had been obviously sutured in less than ideal conditions. He looked out of place in the sea of well-heeled parents, all dressed in formal attire at the annual Holton-Arms School fund raiser. His suit was obviously borrowed, it's light gray polyester shining in a sea of dark woolen tuxedos.

Were it not for the fact that the man just flat out smelled dangerous, Father Emmett was sure one of the other parents would have made a snide remark to him. While Holton-Arms was not Sidwell Friends or Georgetown Day (where the true blue bloods went), the school attracted the upper echelons of Beltway Roman Catholics. Luckily, all the parents gave the man a wide berth. Emmett had tried to strike up a conversation with the Deidre's father, but he was quiet, allowing his wife to function as his social interface to the world, while he stood there, obviously wanting to be somewhere else.

Emmett saw Mr. McDonnough smile only once that night, when the McDonnough's only child tried to sneak up behind him to hug him. He twirled around, mid-conversation, as if he had eyes in the back of his head and scooped the girl up into his arms.

“Heya cupcake, you behavin' yourself?” the man said, his ugly scar made nearly invisible by the big wide smile on his face. His bright blue eyes twinkled as he smiled at his pride and joy.

“Nope! Of course not, Daddy. I've already put itching powder on all the toilet seats.” Deidre giggled, winking at her father.

“Well, good...” he said and leaned in to whisper something in her ear.

The two had started laughing. A guffaw really at their shared private joke. Olivia stood there and smiled at the two. Father Emmett had wondered if the woman realized how much her family stuck out from the rest of Holton-Arms. Or if she really cared.

Father Emmett cleared his throat as the girls in his Latin I class quieted down. He stood up and turned to face the crucifix on the wall, the girls all taking the cue.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” began Father Emmett.

The girls responded in unison, “Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem...” as one of the 9th graders slipped through the door to hand Father Emmett a slip of paper.

Emmett read the paper as the girls continued, “...credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem...” When they finished he said “Ok, open up your Wheelocks text to page 54 and translate the first two paragraphs... Deidre, will you come up here for a moment?”

The girl stood up and strode down the aisle, stumbling over a bag left in it.”Klutz” she thought. At 12 she was by far the tallest girl in her class and the most clumsy. She came up to the desk and said “Yes, Father Emmett?”

“Deidre, your father just called. He said that they just got back from Italy and were stopping by to pick you up... something about an eye doctor's appointment for you," said the priest.

Deidre knotted her brow, trying to remember an eye appointment. Her eyesight was a little weak as of late and she did have an appointment. She thought for a moment, trying to remember the date.

She had few friends in or out of school. Most of her time was spent in her room, reading through library books or, if she was lucky, copies of things her Mother brought home. By age eight she had been fluent both in her mother's native tongue as well as the Latin her mother relied upon for her duties at the Nunciature. She generally had to slip those papers out of her mother's study. A curious child, she had begun delving into the history of the Church, what she termed “the spooky stuff.” All those nights, reading under the sheets with a flashlight, had begun to take a toll on her eyes. When her parents said something about an eye doctor, she thought "Great... the geekiest girl in class get's eye glasses... Katie Riley will pick on me even more so."

She smiled and shrugged and said “He probably forgot the date...” and grabbed her books. Taking a pass from Father Emmett, she waved and walked out the door.

Deidre bounded down the front steps of the school, books in hand. She had forgotten her jacket that morning, but it wasn't yet chilly enough to worry about being cold. Her skirt swished about her legs, barely covering the scabs on her knees. As she reached the driveway to the school, she saw her father's car. She smiled as the door to the car opened and she raced towards it.

“Uncle Norb!” she shouted, a gleam in her eyes. Uncle Norb wasn't really a relative. She had none of those other than her father and mother. He was one of her father's oldest friends and she loved him because, unlike her father, he would tell the war stories her father kept from the family.

It wasn't until last year that she more or less understood what it was that her father did for a living. His long absences had always been taken as fact in her house and it was during those absences that Uncle Norb had started to come around. More a grandfather than an Uncle, he treated her more adult than any child could hope, telling her the truth with a minimal of filtering. She understood that what her father did was secret and that it was so important he couldn't tell her. Knowing this tidbit of information drew her closer to her father during his rare times at home.

“Heya Deidre...” Norbert Laurence said, his face ashen. “Hop on in...”

Deidre hopped in to the back seat, fully expecting to see her Father and Mother sitting up front. Instead, she looked over at a very serious looking man sitting “on the hump” between her and Norbert. In the front were two men she had never seen before, all dressed in dark suits, all with short cropped hair and serious faces. She leaned over the man in the middle as the automatic door locks clicked and the car sped down the driveway

“Uncle Norb... where's Mom and Dad?” she said, a little worried. She had some of her father's sense of being able to tell when a situation smelled fishy and this all seemed wrong somehow.

The man in the passenger seat turned around. In his hand was a very large gun. Deidre gasped and reached for the door, but the man between her and Uncle Norb grabbed her, and held her tight. Norbert turned to Deidre, a tear in his eye and muttered “I'm sorry kiddo.” as the man shot a tranquilizer dark into the child's arm. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and it all went dark. The man in the middle slumped the girl against the door and stared forward as if he he hadn't just done anything wrong.

Norbert sighed a resigned sigh and turned to look out the window, watching the fall of Maryland pass him by. As the car swung onto the Beltway he noticed the driver took the wrong on-ramp, going away from Virginia. Norbert turned and growled “Hey, dummy, you missed your turn...”

The man sitting next to him turned, his face blank and expressionless. The man grabbed Norbert quick as a snake and rammed a large needle into Norbert's leg. As the world around him began to fade away Norbert prayed silently for forgiveness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------


Four dead in traffic accident

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chevy Chase -- The State Patrol says four people were killed when a car hit a concrete barrier on the Capital Beltway yesterday afternoon.

The Maryland State Patrol told the Washington Post that the driver of the car, an 38-year-old Potomac man likely suffered a heart attack and lost control of the car. The car hit the concrete barrier and immediately exploded, shutting down the Capital Beltway for 2 hours.

Among the dead are the man's 39 year old wife, 12 year old daughter and 72 year old Norbert Laurence of McLean, Va.

Identities of the family are pending notification of next of kin.

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Usr's eyes snap open, her face covered in sweat, her arms torn up from scratches. She reaches over to her nightstand and grabs the glass of lukewarm water and drinks greedily, wiping her face on the sheet tossed to the side. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she pulls her knees up to her chest and grabs them, rocking steadily. “Dammit Missy,” she mutters. The alcohol had kept all her memories distant and as vague as smoke. Quitting drinking wasn't something she particularly wanted to do, but was doing it to prove a point to Missy. Unfortunately, quitting had only opened the flood gates of Usr's memories and they were now rushing in during her sleep. Bits and pieces, here and there, she remembered little enough of them, thankfully, but what she did remember was usually important. She reaches over and grabs the scraps of paper she habitually keeps next to her bed and scribbles down one word.

“Deidre”
12/14/08 22:07
MissyUsr.. you have to continue this. Wonderful wonderful wonderful writing. (And I'm not just saying that because you mention my character at the end :P). Is it any freaking wonder that CoLA is the best RP sim in SL? Nope. Not with talent like this.12/15/08 18:30
UsrBinPerlMissy,

Thanks. I tried working on this a bit last night but ran into a bunch of ugly ugly ugly issues with what I wrote. Everything I wrote was flat and stale and utterly unbelievable because I was holding back because the next few chapters are especially dark and disturbing.

A lot of this we've talked about in private IMs and I *think* I figured a way to muddle through this bit of difficulty, but the next few chapters are still going to be very hard for me to write.. so it might be a day or two before I get it the next bit out...

So far it's looking like it'll be around 24 parts. I've been thinking about Usr's backstory for almost a year, writing notes and backfilling it in slowly. One thing that has come of this is I've found a new respect for writers like Dickens, who serialized their works. Once it's out, you can't go back and tweak a fact to make it fit a storyline you haven't totally fleshed out in detail.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's been a very long time since I've tried to write anything seriously.
12/15/08 18:42
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