4.6 Divided Hearts

The Science Center had opened all sorts of doors for Zahra.

These days she was in a hush-hush program devoted to crossbreeding creatures and robots. You had to be sure not to call too much attention to programs like these or the silly animal rights activists came down on your head. And let’s not talk about Equal Rights for Artificial Intelligence movement.

She spent a lot of her time looking for unique animal specimens for her experiments, and there was no better place to look for truly bizarre evolutionary life paths than in the sea.

So she was fishing on the beach behind the house when the old urn she kept on her dresser began to rattle.

She wasn’t there. She couldn’t have heard or felt it, and yet somehow as the sun went down, she knew to look behind her.

There he was.

Without thinking, Zahra dropped the fishing rod and found herself scrambling and sliding through the beach sand back toward the house.

“Wait for me!” she heard her voice rasp, but it was barely loud enough to carry.

Before she could even make it to the back door, he was gone.

She stood in the hallway, shaking. “No, she whispered. Don’t go away. Please, not again.” She was still standing there when Fabian wandered upstairs and found her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she snapped. “Of course I’m fine.” Even her voice was shaking.

“Zahra,” Fabian said gently. He pulled her into his arms. “You’ve been crying.”

She felt her defenses come crashing down. “He was here!” she sobbed. “I saw him, but he went back to the Netherworld before I could talk to him.”

Fabian stiffened. “Cyclone.”

Zahra nodded. “I know he’s not the same. I… I kept his urn all these years in hopes that his spirit would manifest and he could come back to me. But I know a lot more now. Traditional ghosts are just projections from the Netherworld, pale incomplete memories of the real person. There’s no way he could really come back to me. Still… I just wanted a chance to say goodbye.”

“I understand,” Fabian said, and he tried to. “Cyclone was your true love, and you lost him so young.”

Zahra buried her head in Fabian’s shoulder, the most vulnerable gesture he had seen from her in more years than he could remember. “Not true love,” she whispered. “Just first love. I know I’m hard on you. It’s just that I’m so afraid you’ll leave me too.”

Fabian held her close, and he felt a part of his heart heal that he hadn’t realized was broken. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “I know all about first loves.”

“Who was yours, then?”

“You.”

“Oh.”

And they just stood there in the hallway for a while because there was nothing more to say.

————-

This is the first and ONLY time Cycl0n3’s ghost has ever manifest. I’ve always wanted to have a complete collection of heirs and mates, though I can see that too many ghosts gets to be a real pain after a while. Still, it was great to see him!

I dropped the silly spelling for this post because it gets to be such a pain to type :).

And Zahra has made her LTW! Fabian is about 1.5 promotions behind her, despite getting about two ahead while she was stuck on endless maternity leave. Barring any promotion glitches like SimDjinn, he’s going to make it in plenty of time, though.

13 thoughts on “4.6 Divided Hearts

  1. It's nice that Cycl0n appeared one more time. Felt like he really wanted to say goodbye – but he should have waited for Zahra to arrive…. 🙁 Anyway. I think that really was a crucial moment for the relationship between Zahra and Fabian, officially "putting that behind them".

  2. I was really disappointed that Cyclone went back into his urn before Zahra could get back from the beach. She really was just entering the house when he disappeared. I thought maybe the urn was broken or something and didn't have a ghost in it, but clearly it does. I don't know why he doesn't come out with the other ghosts. I have turned the urn into a gravestone in the family graveyard under the willow tree. We'll see if that has any effect on his manifestation. It would be nice if Zahra got a chance to talk to him.

    Fabian has turned out to be a pretty complicated guy. He really does mean well, and he loves Zahra very much. I have my fingers crossed for them.

  3. Aw…this was such a, I don't know, tender chapter. You can really tell how torn Zahra is between someone she'd loved her whole life and lost, and someone who she loves now, but has hurt her tremendously. I like it, even though it's sad, and I like that Zahra and Fabian haven't altogether vanished just because Charles is an adult now.

  4. Hey, you're back as the Callenders!

    This turned out to be kind of intense to write. I like how much the characters have come to life.

    My general gameplay rule is that I let sims go mostly autonomous when they've met all their Pinstar point criteria — in this case, that would be 200k happiness points for Zahra, 100k for Fabian, and their LTWs. I'm just not cool enough to manage 7 or 8 sim households with everyone getting equal attention. At that point, they'll be around, but they'll have a lot less to say. Fabian and Zahra's story is wrapping up, but they have a post or two left in them.

  5. Hahaha, yes, sometimes I can post as the Callenders, sometimes I can't…I think it has something to do with the computer I use at work having outdated browsers. I always try to first, and am always shocked when it happens.

    In Callender time, I'm actually playing an (accidental) 8-Sim household. It's horrific. I've read a lot of Legacy stories where it feels like the writer is just cranking out babies for the fun of it and wind up with several sets of twins and triplets ON PURPOSE. I don't see how they deal, except that the parents usually are conveniently forgotten at that point. Anyway, you're doing a really great job keeping your story realistic without leaving anyone out. However…when do we see metallic elves?? :-p

  6. Ha! What month are you on in gameplay? Still March? Or is it now April or May?

    An 8-sim household is rough. I think people who crank out that many babies are usually just not trying to tell a story :-p. Zahra and Fabian are going go mostly-autonomous just as soon as Fabian gets his last promotion, which should be Any Day Now. I just can't afford the attention now that I actually have a Generation 5. I'm pleased with where they're leaving off, though.

    Ada is not as close to her LTW as I would like, but eventually she'll be out of the household fairly soon too, I think.

    Still, it's hard NOT to hit 8 sims in a household when you're keeping all three generations in the same house. Two grandparents, the patron(ess) and mate, and that's half your household. Keep around any spares and have any kids, and all of a sudden you're overflowing.

  7. Oh, right. My current plan is to shift to Elfland when the Gen 5 patron comes of age. Possibly when Gen 5 is in its teens. I have at least some semblance of a plot excuse in the works, and I'm trying to see what I can to do lay groundwork with the personality traits the kids got.

  8. Gameplay I'm in March/April. I've been trying to slow down in a vain attempt to catch the blog up to the game, but it's sort of hard since I tend to take so long to update. :- I can also see how it can be difficult to get rid of spares; I will definitely miss Ada when she goes.

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