Sky was walking on air. She and Leah spent every spare moment together.

It was if there was magic binding them together, and their relationship progressed quickly.

For Forest, there was most certainly magic in the air. He spent a lot of time alone with his dusty books and arcane equipment.

Hunter couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone to call Miyuki. He desperately wanted to talk to her, but what if she didn’t want to talk to him?

He poured his heart out into love letters, but he couldn’t bring himself to mail any of them.

Veronica made some time to continue her study in Sim Fu after she returned from China. She could always get a special session with the instructor.

But mostly she blew things up.

A lot.

The Charles Sample Sim Fu Academy had grown larger than Charles could possibly have dreamed. Day and night, it was filled with students young and old.

There were far too many classes for Charles to teach them all anymore, so he focused on teaching the advanced students and hiring the best of them to teach the beginners.

One day, he came to work to find an old friend waiting for him.

“You’ve come a long way,” Wu said. “I wonder if you’re ready now.”

Charles nodded. He appreciated that this was not a social call. “I can only try,” he said.

“Then let’s have at it.”

When the spar was over, both men were panting and covered in sweat. Charles’s entire body was buzzing. He knew he had never fought so well. Wu had forced him to find parts of himself he would not have found on his own.

Wu’s face broke out in a smile. “I knew you could do it,” he coughed between breaths. “I’m honored to call you an equal.”

That day, Charles Sample was inducted into the order of the great masters of Sim Fu.

This was the situation Charles found himself one afternoon as he ordered a drink from the Garden Gnome pub.

The young man who blew out the candles on his birthday cake and took the reins of this family’s future had been lonely, frustrated, and frightened. The future he’d seen for himself had been a simple, solitary one spent fishing.

He wondered if his younger self would ever have believed he could be a husband, father, mentor, and adventurer. That he would have a family and would migrate that family away from their ancestral home to a truly strange and alien place. That he would be a respected teacher that martial arts students came from all over the simworld to study with. That he would make a real difference in helping creatures like himself live as equals with other sims.

Probably not.

Maybe it was just as well.

When you were surrounded by family and friends and the knowledge that you’d made a difference, growing old didn’t seem so bad.

Happy Birthday.

———-

Charles has been my favorite sim, bar none. And he’s lived FOREVER. Aside from 2012 being a year of turmoil for me, probably the biggest reason his generation has taken so long is that I gave him a World Adventures LTW and have been sending him on so much travel. I think he’s lived through enough days for two sim-lifetimes at this point.

I officially pass the torch at the YA birthday of the heir, which will be in 2-3 more posts. But Charles’s story is well and truly told at this point, I think, and he’s already been stepping aside to give the limelight to his kids. I’ll miss him, but it’s time.

BTW: That’s Cherimoya Marmalade in the foreground while Charles is smashing blocks.