Tag Archive | xia

5.33 Surprising No One

Sky and Xia had a long talk about Abby. Then Xia came by a few days later, and they had another long talk about it. And then they talked some more in email.

Xia was upset, but she didn’t actually question Sky’s honesty about how Abby was conceived. Sky assumed at first that it was just an even more absurd story that Sky had secretly farmed genetic material from a one-night stand in order to carry that woman’s child while she was already married to someone else. Actually, when you said it that way, it actually did seem more plausible that Sky was a supernatural being with a different route to conceiving children.

But it turned out to be more than that. Xia’s great-uncle Zhan Wu had been Charles’s sensei. Xia had learned just a little bit about ghost people from him.

No, Xia wasn’t upset because she didn’t believe Sky’s story. She was upset because Sky never told her. And Sky honestly had never thought that she was being hurtful. She thought she was doing them both a favor to not force Xia to become involved in an enormous, unasked-for complication in her life.

Sky was certainly reexamining the way she looked at things.

Xia spent several afternoons a week at the Sample house, mostly to spend time with Abby. Xia was training as a fighter pilot with the Camelot Armory Air Force, and she kept very early hours — she was usually at work before the sun was up, and she showed up afterwards before Dylan was even home from school. Sky booked Sing-A-Grams for those afternoons. Her life became enormously easier to manage.

The newfound peace of mind left Sky with a new craving to be domestic. After all, she’d been living on delivery pizza, takeout, and microwave meals since Hunter left.

They ate a lot of burned grilled cheese sandwiches for a while. When it wasn’t fit for people to eat, Riddle was always ready to step in and help.

Abby grew into a child.

She was an energetic kid who loved to take on all variety of fantasy roles.

She had a naturally lovely singing voice and would spend hours making up songs and singing them to her favorite doll, Princess. She begged Sky for private singing lessons. Sky was delighted to have someone to share music with, especially since Dylan seemed to have no musical interest at all.

Abby’s imagination seemed boundless, and Sky enjoyed taking little vacations into worlds of Abby’s making. Abby could embellish and expand upon Sky’s bedtime stories to create new stories that Sky liked more than the originals.

Abby also enjoyed telling little white lies and experimenting with just what kind of nonsense she could make people believe. Sky and Xia started sending email notes to each other with things that Abby had told them so that they could compare notes.

Dylan, meanwhile, advanced from block architecture to scale models. He set up a card table in the living room and build a replica of Sunset Valley, where his grandfather came from, and ran a model railroad through it. He used to spend whole evenings perfecting it and adjusting the train track.

One afternoon, when he was adjusting the location of some buildings, Abby came up to watch. “Whatcha doin’?”

“All these houses need to be an inch to the left,” Dylan said absently.

“Why?”

“I wasn’t using the most up-to-date map of the Sunset Valley when I built this model,” he said. “It’s inaccurate.”

Abby looked over the model landscape with wide eyes. “You mean you made this exactly the same as a real place?” she asked.

“I sure did,” Dylan said proudly.

“Why on earth would you want to that?”

Dylan opened his mouth to explain how he’d made the model, then did a double-take. “Huh?”

“Why would you want to make it look like a real place?” Abby asked again. “You can always make up a place that is prettier and more exciting.

Dylan was genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Then it wouldn’t be real.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Real is boring,” she said. “In the real world, you can’t be a superhero. Or a princess.” She walked over to their dress-up chest a pulled out her pink satin princess dress. “Your problem is that you have no imagination.”

“I do so have imagination!” Dylan flared. “I can be a prince just as well as you can be a princess.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Abby said.

Dylan pulled on his blue prince costume and raised his scepter. “By the power invested in me as prince, I’ll built a city of emerald and marble. The streets will be paved with platinum because gold is too soft to make a good road. Everyone is guaranteed a good life and a living wage, provided that they donate time to keep the city clean and beautiful–“

“Wow,” Abby said, laughing. “You really don’t know how to do this.”

Dylan crossed his arms. “OK, you show me.”

Abby caught a fold of her skirt in one hand and raised her head regally to gaze over her subjects. She really was quite convincing. “I’m so pleased to meet you Ambassador,” she said as she raised her hand to a man’s imaginary lips. “Of course I would consider trade with your country when you ask so nicely.” She raised her hands and swept around the room. “I know. My people are so loyal. They would do anything for me. A princess like me can do anything.”

“Ugh,” Dylan said. “Why would you want to do THAT?”

“What?” Abby demanded, stomping her foot. “I was perfect!”

“Have everyone looking at you like that,” Dylan said. “It’s so…. exposed.”

Abby and Dylan had a long way to go before they could ever understand each other.

Sky and Xia set careful boundaries on their relationship. Xia might sleep over, but they made it clear from the start that there was no exclusivity. In fact, some day’s they’d just sit up in bed and tell stories about their erotic adventures with other people. Xia preferred women, but she also found the occasional man interesting, so her stories were sometimes truly alien to Sky.

The Sing-A-Grams had really enhanced Sky’s reputation as a performer. There was standing room only in the bars and pubs when Ghostwriter played. And there was more. In addition to her active fan website, Sky started seeing her face on the cover of gossip magazines. She thought she should have been scandalized, but she actually found it amusing. After her performances, she was flocked by attractive young women trying to attract her attention, and every once in a while, she let someone who interested her show her a good time.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised when she started waking up sick in the mornings.

“I’m pregnant,” she said unceremoniously when she left the bathroom one morning after another round of vomiting.

Xia threw up her hands. “That’s a thing with you, isn’t it. Can’t you do anything about it?”

“My mother had her tubes tied,” Sky said. “I’ve been avoiding it because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up having children.”

“And now?”

“I think I’ll have it done after this one,” Sky admitted.

Xia took her hand. “You’re going to need some extra help now,” she said. “I’m over here all the time. What would you think if I just, well, moved in?”

Sky squeezed her hand. “Would you seriously consider doing that?” she said. “It would make things so much better.”

Xia kissed her. “Done,” she said.

“Just remember–“

“NO COMMITMENT!” And Sky and Xia laughed.

———-

And this is the final baby from Generation 6. One of the sub-challenges I set for Sky was to have three kids by three different women. That certainly shakes up the genetics.

This would have been a couple of posts, but with no pictures I thought I’d toss them all together. Sorry if it’s too long.

Pictures resumed shortly before Abby became a teen, so at least I could share what she looked like. The scene with Abby and Dylan dressed up as royalty was super cute :-p.

5.32 Unexpected Alliance

Nov12

[I have no pics at all for this post. Grump.]

Sky hadn’t really believe it, but her agent turned out to be right. Word got out about Sky’s private Sing-a-Gram performances, and demand was so high that she had to hire a receptionist to take orders. She could sing till she was hoarse all day and not fill all the demand. Sing-a-Grams could easily swallow up all her time for Ghostwriter AND her children. So she decided that she could only book three a day, and she turned a lot of business away.

Her family was a handful. Dylan took care of himself for the most part, though he humored her by letting her work on homework with him. Dylan wasn’t a brilliant student, but he was hard-working and creative. Most of the time he figured out the answer to the problem before she really understood it. He spent half of his evenings at Castle Marmalade with his mum, so Sky felt extra pressure to make her time with him count.

Abby, on the other hand, was a demanding toddler, and she had no interest in playing by herself. She would howl if she didn’t feel she was the center of attention. Forest was no help with child care. Hunter came over some afternoons to give Sky a break, and Sky had to hire a babysitter when she was out doing Sing-a-Grams. But most of the time, Sky had to amuse Abby by herself. Single motherhood was exhausting.

In the midst of all this, Sky received word that her elderly Aunt Ada had passed on. Uncle Alberto, who had always been something of a playboy-wannabe, vented his grief by hitting on every woman he could find up and down the streets of Avalon. Sky’s cousin Tomas was mortified.

One day, he called in and hired Sky for Sing-a-Gram serenade for his current obsession, local stage magician Echo Weaver, who he had persuaded to go on a date with him at Coffee Under the Sea.

With trepidation, Sky met her uncle there. The date had already gone sour, and Echo was shouting profanity at him on the patio in front of the coffee shop. [I kid you not. It was hilarious.]

Sky stood on the sidewalk with her musical paraphernalia, waiting for one or the other of them to notice her. They didn’t. This was terribly embarrassing. Finally, she said, “This doesn’t look like the best time. Why don’t we reschedule, Uncle Alberto?”

Alberto noticed her for the first time. “No, of course not!” he said. “Echo my dear, this is my talented niece, Sky Sample. She’s going to serenade us.”

“Don’t call me dear, you perverted old codger,” Echo snarled. The she focused on Sky. “Sky Sample of Ghostwriter? You’re kidding me!”

Sky was surprised and impressed that a local celebrity performer knew her name. At least it distracted Alberto and Echo from their public scene. She set down her portable stereo bubble-blower, hit the ON button, and began to sing.

The finale was a flourish of roses, which Echo refused and Sky had to present to Alberto. Then the two of them picked their fight right back up where it left off. Sky packed up her things and made to get home as fast as possible. Then she noticed someone watching her from behind Echo and Alberto.

It was Xia Wu.

Sky froze. Xia walked over to her, not bothering to stifle her laughter. “That has got to be the most awkward performance I’ve ever seen,” she said. “You pulled it off with about as much style as could be expected.”

“That’s a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one,” Sky said.

“OK, it was a train wreck,” Xia admitted, “but it was fun to watch.”

Xia went on to comment about the weather and ask about the music business. In spite of herself, Sky was drawn in. Xia’s dry sense of humor was infectious, and it helped her relax from her public embarrassment. She hadn’t intended to mention it, but somehow she let slip that today was her birthday.

“Your birthday? You’re kidding me!” Xia said. “I hope you’re planning to do something to celebrate.”

“My triplet brothers are coming over tonight so we can have cake together,” Sky agreed. “It’s not a bit deal, but we’re all really busy right now.” Then she surprised herself by saying, “You’d be welcome to join us. Hunter is baking the cake, and he’s a great cook.”

“I’d be delighted,” Xia said.

Sky gave her directions to the house and made her escape. And indeed, Xia arrived a good 10 minutes early, while Hunter was putting final decorations on the cake. Eliana was there with little Ash, getting visibly round with her and Hunter’s first biological child. Hunter and Eliana certainly hadn’t wasted any time, but they looked incredibly happy. The babysitter had already put Abby to bed, but Dylan had arranged to swap days with Leah so that he could be there for the celebration. Everyone eyed Xia with surprise, but she too the attention with panache.

There was singing and candle blowing — one candle for each triplet. The cake was delicious. The conversation was nice, if interrupted a lot by Ash. Xia told outlandish stories about the lavish parties she used to throw at Castle Marmalade and kept everyone laughing. Eventually, Hunter and Eliana had to go home, Dylan to bed, and Forest to work. Sky and Xia were left alone.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Xia said. “It was so warm and, well, family-like.”

“It was my family,” Sky pointed out.

Xia chuckled. “I come from a big family too,” she said. “Your family is a lot like my family. Everyone made me feel welcome.”

Sky smiled. “I’m glad. It wasn’t much of a party, but I have to say you were the life of it.” She stood up to escort Xia to the door.

Suddenly, they were standing very close together, and Sky couldn’t deny the chemistry she’d been avoiding all day.

Xia was watching her without even trying to hide her desire. “I don’t have anywhere I have to be,” she said softly.

“Xia,” Sky pleaded. “We shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The last time –“

Xia sighed. “The damage is done. We might as well have the fun we’re already paying for.”

Xia was right. Sky had already lost Leah. She couldn’t lose her a second time. Sky had been avoiding Xia like the plague since that night in the pub, but the reason for that was gone, wasn’t it? What was she afraid of now?

“I don’t want any commitment,” Sky said. “I’m not good at relationships.”

“I know,” Xia said. “Neither am I.”

And then Xia kissed her, and they both lost interest in talking.

They woke in a tangle of bedsheets to the sound of a toddler howling in the next room. Xia sat up. “Ugh? What’s that!”

“That’s Abby,” Sky said. She dragged herself out of bed, kicked aside her discarded lingerie, and pulled on a robe. “Don’t worry. She’s always like that. I’ll just get her something to eat.”

Sky made her way to Abby’s room and picked her up, deftly cooing over her to calm her down. She sat the cranky toddler on the floor and produced a bottle of milk, freshly warmed in the microwave. Then she sat on the floor and stroked Abby’s green hair while she drank.

She looked up to find Xia standing in the doorway. She looked like she’d been hit with a two-by-four.

“She’s mine,” Xia said.

Sky gulped. She’s actually forgotten Abby was Xia’s child, and she’d never said anything because that would have further entangled them. “Yes,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“How–?”

“It’s a long story,” Sky evaded. “But I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear.”

Xia’s gaze was so intense that it almost seemed to burn Sky’s skin. “I have time,” she said. “You better start talking. And you’d better get used to seeing me because can’t get rid of me now.”

———-

I think this post actually turned out longer than it would have with pictures. I guess because I had to describe everything you couldn’t see.

5.31 Wedding Bells and Sad Farewells

Nov11

In the middle of planning their wedding, Eliana received a call from her sister Nicola. Their father, Robbin Baerwyn, had died at the hospital earlier that morning. He had fallen ill and been diagnosed with a rare blood-borne illness earlier that week. When Forest heard the news, he just nodded and said, “Yes, that makes sense.”

Eliana hung up the phone and walked straight up to her room and closed the door. Hunter stayed downstairs with Ash, looking worried, but he gave her space.

She came down a few hours later, dressed in her best black and violet dress. She crossed the room and took Hunter’s hand. “Let’s get married,” she said.

Hunter blinked. “Right now?”

“Yes. Right now.”

So they were married in the gazebo in the back garden under the stars, with just Sky, Forest, and the children in attendance. Sky slipped out to buy a birthday cake, and they ate it in the arboretum by Hunter’s garden. It was simple, spontaneous, and not terribly grand wedding, but Eliana and Hunter couldn’t have happier with it.

“So,” Hunter said when he’d swallowed his last bite of cake. “I found us a place that I think would be great for Meteor.” He looked at Forest. “I was thinking we were ready to move out.”

Forest, who was standing up with his plate, leaning against a support, nodded. “I think the obstacles keeping Eliana here have been dealt with.”

Eliana flushed and said nothing. Hunter squeezed her hand. “Then if you’re ready Eliana, I say we do it.”

Eliana’s look was fierce. “Let’s do it,” she said.

Within a couple of days, Hunter had purchased the property, a small rural lot with stables and a large garden plot. It was a big risk. The purchase wiped out everything he had saved from his produce business, and he would have to replant. Sky offered help from the Sample trust fund, but Hunter conditionally refused. He wanted to use it only if he had no other option. Still, it made Sky feel better that he had a net to catch him if he fell.

Most of Hunter and Eliana’s belongings fit into a couple of duffle bags. All too soon, Hunter stood at the door with a bag over his shoulder. “Guess this is it, sis.”

Sky hugged him tightly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” she said.

Hunter hugged back. “I’m not that far away. You can always call. But I know you can do it.”

“I hope so,” Sky said. She watched the entourage straggle down the driveway: man, woman, toddler, wolf, fox, and dog. Riddle snuffled her hand. He at least was staying behind. The house seemed so empty with half of the residents gone.

And she had one more wedding to attend.

She dressed to the nines. She could go and be supportive, but she wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her at less than her best.

She was so worried about being late that she ended up being the first to arrive. The sat in the silence to collect her thoughts.

The chapel grounds were choked in pink, which is just what you’d expect.

And Leah was fairly glowing.

The guests filed in. Leah’s kid brother Raen was there with his fiance Mitchell Bachelor. They were quite a couple. Mitchell was in a tux, while Raen didn’t dress up at all.

And to her surprise, Xia Wu was there too. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, Sky was there. Sky would have waved to Xia, but it seemed like exactly the wrong thing to call Leah and Plum’s attention to them.

Leah and Plum posed for pictures before the ceremony.

And the vows went off without a hitch.

There wasn’t a dry eye on the lawn.

The wedding was filled with flowers, lace, and dramatic promises of fairy tale love. It was exactly the wedding Leah had always fantasized about that Sky had not given her.

Afterward, there was a receiving line, and Sky made her way to the front to give her respects to the happy couple.

When it was her turn, Leah just stared at her for a moment. Sky couldn’t met her eyes.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Sky tried. “I really hope you’ll be happy with Plum. She seems like everything… I… wasn’t.”

Leah looked lost at first.

Then she smiled. “I think I got it right this time,” she gushed. “Plum is the wife I always dreamed of.”

The contrast hung in the air between them. “I’m glad,” Sky said weakly. She turned away and went to pour herself some punch.

And ran into Xia on the way into the chapel.

Sky briefly considered teleporting away. She just wanted to be alone, and the last person she wanted to talk to was the woman who was the reason she’d lost her true love.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Xia said.

Sky shrugged. “I didn’t expect to see you either.”

“I guess both of us couldn’t help but wallow in our just desserts.”

Sky sighed, afraid she would lose her composure. “Leah and Plum may not realize it, but we probably did them a big favor. They’ll be happier with each other than they ever would have been with us.”

“Yeah,” Xia said wistfully.

“Did you love her?” Sky couldn’t help but ask.

Xia smiled bitterly. “I thought I loved her more than life itself,” she admitted.

Sky gulped and said her goodbyes.

Instead of heading home to relieve the babysitter, Sky found herself at Honeyduke’s instead, on the phone to Adam. Soon the remainder of Ghostwriter had collected together for an unscheduled performance.

She still had her music. In a very real way, it was the one true love of her life. If she looked at it that way, she was very lucky.

Once she was lost in the sharing of melodies with Adam and Garry, she could let herself feel optimistic. Her old life was torn down. All she had to do was be ready to build a new one.

Instead of being lost, she could be free.

———

This was a final oasis in a long desert of pictures.

I pulled the gorgeous wedding venue off DNA Request Team. I think it’s Lissykin’s.

5.17 Crashing

Sep4

With Charles gone, Veronica tossed and turned in her empty bed. She would wander half-awake in the wee hours of the morning as if looking for something.

It wasn’t long before she realized she couldn’t continue on as if Charles were there. She needed to change her surroundings. So she packed up a few of her bedroom necessities and assembled their adventuring yurt in the yard. It was warm and comfortable in all weather, and she had often slept alone while they traveled. Waking up alone in the yurt wouldn’t carry that sense of wrongness that caused panic and confusion her her bedroom.

Enigma knocked down snowmen in the yard.

Hunter went to visit Eliana, who had been withdrawn since she was fired by Sean Flynn.

Eliana answered the door, but he could hear her father talking in the background.

“Thanks for coming over,” Eliana sniffled. “I know I’m not very good company.”

“I don’t understand,” Hunter said honestly. “Is this really all about being laid off? It wasn’t even that great a job. You can do better. I know it.”

“You’re such a great friend,” Eliana said. Hunter noticed the word ‘friend’ immediately. “It’s rough to be fired and not know why, you know? But really it’s that my dad is so upset about the whole thing. He keeps asking me what I did to make Mr. Flynn angry, and I just don’t know!”

Hunter felt a twinge of guilt. He knew he’d set the events in motion that led her to be fired, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that yet. “Eliana,” he said. “I’m worried about you. Would you ever consider moving out? You’d be welcome to crash at my place until you get on your feet.”

Eliana’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s so kind,” she said. “But I couldn’t consider it. I know Dad wants me to stay here. Moving out would make him even angrier!”

There was something seriously wrong with this household. Hunter needed to know more before he took action.

Forest spent most of his time in his room these days, researching something in musty old tomes.

He didn’t talk to his family much, but it was clear he was very concerned about something.

Sky was inconsolable.

Her father was gone, and she had never felt so alone. Not only had Charles been the quiet support that held her up during times of stress, he was the only other being she knew with their curious… condition.

Leah tried to be supportive, but Dylan was the light of her life and required constant attention.

Leah had always liked Charles, but he was not her father. She and Sky struggled to talk about Sky’s grief.

Sky had never felt so isolated from her family. They were a loud group with intricately tangled lives, but somehow they were all grieving separately.

Without her to promote Ghostwriter, business for the band waned. She took to soliciting solo gigs in some of the local bars to get out of the house.

On this night, she provided live entertainment at The Garden Gnome pub.

The place wasn’t exactly packed, but business was good enough. They liked her at the Garden Gnome.

As she headed to the bathroom after her last set, she ran into an old classmate from high school, Xia Wu.

Xia had been a bit of an ugly duckling in school, but she had certainly grown up well. And confident.

She and Sky stood for a moment and watched each other. The moment dragged a bit longer than was really polite.

Sky struggled to find a way to recover from the awkwardness. “Hey,” she said. “We ought to catch up on our lives since graduation! Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Xia smiled warmly. “If you’re buying? Absolutely!”

The conversation ran long, from one drink to two.

Shy had never paid much attention to Xia at school, but it appeared that Xia had been paying attention to her. Xia knew everything about Ghostwriter, too.

“I just love to dance,” Xia said as she set her empty glass on the bar. “Do you have to head home now, or would you — ah — like to dance with me?”

Sky followed her to the dance floor

At home, Leah began to tidy up Charles and Veronica’s unused bedroom.

She found the ballerina music box that had been Charles’s first gift to Veronica and wound it up.

She’d heard the story of how Charles had found it in France and brought it home to give to his true love. Leah loved it. Her parents-in-law were such soulmates.

The music was a haunting love song that made Leah fantasize of fairytales and magical romance. She and Sky had that kind of connection, didn’t they? Perhaps not quite so perfect, but they had the rest of their lives to make it that way.

Right?

Xia was a great dancer, and she was starting to give Sky a look that made her heart pound. Sky was pretty sure she was looking back, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to. She needed to say goodbye and walk away.

Instead, the next song was slow and sultry. She and Xia stepped together and touched each other for the first time.

“It’s not too much?” Xia asked.

“No,” Sky whispered softly.

She wasn’t sure she had never felt this way, and she knew she shouldn’t be feeling it now.

“You know,” Xia whispered as they danced cheek to cheek, “I had the biggest crush on you in high school. I used to write you love letters and then never send them.”

“Really?” Sky was shocked. “You felt that way about me?”

Leah had been the only girl she’d ever realized noticed her. Some part of her was still the lonely, ostracized ghost girl from Sunset Valley.

“Of course!” Xia said. “You were so confident and beautiful. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.”

And then Sky completely lost control of the situation.

She had no idea who kissed whom. The moment just felt right, and they fit together as if made to hold each other.

Once it began, it seemed as if there were no way to stop.

When they were finished, all they could do was hold each other breathlessly. Xia was glowing.

Sky felt light, as if some great weight were lifted from her shoulders. All the tension and grief seemed like something she could live with.

And then the weight came crashing back down on her.

What had she done?

———-

Back from a long hiatus!

Don’t be too hard on Sky. We all saw her traits, much less her LTW. She’s been thrust much too quickly into a stable home life she wasn’t ready for.

I loved the Sultan’s Tabernacle adventure gear, but the !@#$ thing is two stories tall, which makes it impossible to use as an adventuring tent. Good going, EA. I liked the idea of Veronica sleeping in it now. Plus it gives great sleep moodlets.