5.24 Silver Linings

Oct12

Eliana moved into the Sample estate that night.

Hunter offered to call her father to tell her she wasn’t coming home, but she insisted on doing it herself. When he started shouting at her over the telephone, she hung up on him and giggled crazily. “I never thought I’d be able to do that!” she said.

“I think you can do anything,” Hunter replied.

The next evening, she found her way to the gypsy caravan to have her palm read.

She came home glowing. “This the beginning of good things,” she said. “I believe it.”

She spent a few evenings in long talks with Veronica and applied for a job a the Sufficiently Advanced Tech Center.

Hunter and Forest hauled around furniture and bought a bed appropriate for Hunter’s new lifestyle.

Which was useful because it gave Sky a place to sleep other than the couch.

Sky and Leah were a far cry from sleeping in the same bed, but Sky had good reason to hope that they would again. As awful as it was to deal with the truth, it turned out to be so much better than hiding the truth. Now there were no more secrets. Sky worked hard to show Leah how much she meant to her.

Sky had been afraid her wife might treat little Abby as an intruder, either consciously or unconsciously. That didn’t happen. Leah had an affinity for babies, and it never seemed to occur to her to punish the child for the sins of the mother.

Abby and Dylan were the glue that held Sky and Leah together.

Though no one could appreciate the new baby more than her grandmother.

Once they started to build a new routine again, Sky went back to promoting Ghostwriter.

She and Adam started playing in clubs to light a fire under the fans the band had already built.

Hunter now had a girlfriend who worked regular hours, and he had to give up his nocturnal wandering. He couldn’t give up his search for the unicorn, though, and he started wandering again at dusk after dinner.

He didn’t find any magical creatures, but he did befriend a wild red fox.

Hunter felt connected to the little predator in a way he had only felt connected to Enigma before.

By the end of an afternoon together, they were fast friends. Hunter called him Blaze for his firey red fur.

Hunter had to keep Blaze outside until the fox was comfortable enough to submit to a scrub down for fleas and parasites. After that, he became a member of Hunter’s family.

He was very careful to make sure that Enigma knew she wasn’t losing Hunter’s heart.

Sometimes Enigma was so tame these days, you could mistake her for a big dog. Well, at least when she was with Hunter. When she was out with her pack, all bets were off.

Then, of course, there were two puppies to care for.

Riddle and Mystery were part of the family too. It was becoming quite a menagerie.

Flynn summoned Forest one night.

The beach was isolated, and the sand dunes swallowed up their footprints as soon as they made them.

Flynn didn’t waste any time. “Robbin Baerwyn tells me you have his daughter,” he said.

“In a manner of speaking,” Forest replied. “Really, my brother has her. She doesn’t want to go home, which doesn’t seem terribly surprising to me.”

“Baerwyn can’t reach her at your house.”

Forest drew himself up and met Flynn’s eyes without blinking. “I have her under my protection,” he said.

Flynn seemed to think about this. “I always knew you had power,” he said at last. “Very well. I’m losing patience with Baerwyn, and I don’t think he has anything else to offer me. If you want to take on the trouble of the girl, I will not take offense for now.”

Forest was so relieved, he felt his knees might give way. He kept his face unreadable. “I think that’s a wise choice,” he said.

One evening, as they were getting ready for bed, Eliana was hit with severe contractions.

Hunter rushed her to the hospital, and Ash Baerwyn was born shortly after.

As the two of then had discussed for months, Eliana listed Hunter on the birth certificate as Ash’s father. Weston Mentary knew that the child was his. He could ask for a paternity test if he wanted a role in Ash’s life, and Eliana would support him if he wanted to do that. But Weston had a new fiancee now, Raquel Sword. Both he and Eliana had moved on. Hunter wanted to adopt the baby, and this seemed like the easiest way for all involved.

Now there were two babies and a toddler in the Sample house. It was starting to feel like a daycare center.

It just so happened that Dylan and Abby’s birthday coincided with Love Day. Sky and Leah had so much fun planning a big springtime party in the park that Sky was ready to think the whole cheating issue was behind them.

Then the day dawned in a steady, dreary rainfall.

Veronica looked over Sky’s shoulder, out the window at the dismal day.

“Well, this won’t do!” she declared.

Leah sighed. “The only thing that could ruin this day was the weather,” she said.

“Now now,” Veronica said. “I never let a little thing like the weather ruin my fun. I change it! I think now is the best possible time to test my newest invention.”

“I call it The Weather Changer,” she said. “Watch and be amazed.”

She didn’t even bother to grab an umbrella when she marched out into the downpour.

When she was done, she looked over her dumbfounded family. “Well, pick your jaws up off the floor and let’s get going! We have a birthday party!”

———-

The weather machine LTR is the most awesome animation I have ever seen in this game.

Let’s celebrate a meaningless milestone today!

Oct7

This venerated blog reached 25,000 hits today.

Most of those are actually hits, I think, rather than referral spam. Google seems to have done a great job of stripping most of that stuff out in the last few months.

A huge fraction of those hits are generated automatically by blogs by lovely people who have put me on their auto-updating blogroll.

A bunch the hits are most certainly spiders for web search engines and other such ilk.

A decent number are traffic from Google’s error in indexing a picture from this blog as the first hit for a kind of fetish wear. I won’t repeat it here for fear of attracting more traffic that is disappointing for everyone involved. (Imagine you clicked a link expecting to see fetish wear and got a Sims video game blog?!)

But some of them are people who read actual posts!

Thanks, all of you actual people who read actual posts.

5.23 Knight in Armor

Oct7

Forest received a phone call around noon one day, just as he was waking up.

It was Valerie Ursine-Mentary, one of Flynn’s inner circle of advisers. “I think it’s time to talk about my situation,” Valerie said. “I’m going to be at the Crypt Club before work if you can make the time.”

So Hunter made the time.

The Crypt Club was deserted at 4pm in the afternoon. When he arrived, he only had the bartender to keep him company. In most cases, he wouldn’t be concerned about that at all. With the kind of business that went on at the Crypt Club, bartenders knew to keep their stories to themselves. But this was different — he had a feeling this conversation was going to intrude on the Emperor of Evil’s private business.

When Valerie appeared, he held up his drink and gestured with it back toward the stairs. “It’s stuffy in here,” he said. “I’m going to take a walk, and you’re welcome to join me.”

Valerie gave him a wry smile. She knew how the game worked.

[Sorry. They really did talk, but I had a screen snap fail. As in I failed to take screen snaps.]

They strolled down back paths together for a while, not bothering to make smalltalk. When Forest decided they were as safe as they were going to get, he spoke. “You have a problem I can help with?”

Ursine-Mentary gave an expressive shrug, though she didn’t stop walking. “I seem to have my foot caught in the door, and I think you have personal interest in my current assignment.”

Forest said nothing and waited for her to continue. If he had any reaction, it was hidden behind his mirrored glasses.

“You know I am personally assigned to Robbin Baerwyn.”

Forest nodded. “I hear you two are engaged. Congratulations.”

Valerie looked daggers at him. “It’s not much of a risk. He’s 92 with a weak heart. He enjoys having a younger woman to hang on his arm, and it keeps me in his confidence.”

“Go on.” Forest kept his face impassive, but he knew that was hardly the whole story. Valerie was a young widow because her first husband, noted scientist Dr. U. Mentary, hadn’t been much older than that when she married him. She had a thing for older men. Much older men. And these days she had a son to support alone as well. Whatever she felt for Baerwyn, it couldn’t hurt to have access to his assets.

“Robbin is obsessed with finding immortality, and he’s trying to sell his family out to do it. He has struck a deal with Flynn over his daughter Eliana. I don’t know all the details, but I know Flynn was keeping her as a receptionist and late-night snack for a while, and something changed his mind. Now that Robbin’s health is really starting to fail, he’s getting desperate, and he plans to try again to get Flynn to accept Eliana as payment for Flynn’s favor.” None of them ever said vampire aloud, but Valerie knew just as well as Forest what Flynn was. Baerwyn wanted Flynn to turn him.

“Flynn is never going to do it, you know,” Forest said. “He doesn’t need the competition.”

Valerie offered a mirthless smile. “Of course,” she said. “But Robbin doesn’t know that, and Eliana doesn’t know what end is up. I know you have some kind of personal interest in the Baerwyn family. Eliana could use a white knight to ride in to her rescue right about how.”

Forest let out a chuckle in spite of himself. “Nobody,” he said, “has ever accused me of being a white knight.”

Every since Hunter had seen that sparkling white fairy tale create, he’d been obsessed with finding it again. The owner of the Alchemy Academy knew him by sight now. He had read every book they had on unicorns, and now he had even more obscure ones on order.

Unicorns were powerful nature spirits. They appeared mostly in the darkest night in places away from civilization. Hunter could work in his garden at any time, so he moved to a nocturnal schedule and began roaming the woods and the seashores with Enigma at night.

He was scouting an old medieval ruin called Dragon Rock the night he ran into Eliana Baerwyn.

She had climbed to the top of the highest remaining rampart and was looking down into the remains of the moat with empty eyes. Hunter’s chest squeezed with pity at the sight of her. “Eliana!” he called.

Eliana jumped. Then she saw him. “Hunter!”

“I know I’m being kind of a jerk,” Hunter said. “But I’ve seen stones up there pull loose without reason. I couldn’t bear it if you fell in and got hurt.”

Eliana’s eyes were so filled with despair that it scared Hunter just to look at her. “I didn’t think you’d care that much,” she said.

Hunter scuffed his foot in the dirt. “I, um, well, look. I was leaving messages on your voice mail, and then you changed your phone number. I thought it was you who didn’t care.”

“I’m sorry!” Eliana whispered. “It’s just that after I took you home to meet Daddy, he said he didn’t want me to talk to you again! I didn’t know what to do!”

Hunter was perplexed. “You didn’t call me back because your dad said not to? Why do you let him have that kind of power over you?”

Eliana trembled. “You don’t know my father.”

Hunter took a moment to let that sink in, then his face turned cold and hard. “I don’t know him, but maybe I should learn. You should never be frightened Eliana. Let me protect you.”

“Protect me?” Eliana echoed.

It had misting lightly all evening, but now the skies opened up and began raining in earnest. Hunter’s watertight leather jacket was good protection, but not for Eliana. Enigma let out an impatient bark. “We could go someplace more comfortable,” Hunter suggested. “Would you consider coming home with me?”

“Lead the way,” Eliana said.

They ran for the Sample house together and dripped on the doormat. The house was dark. Everyone was asleep except Forest, who was at work.

“This is beautiful,” Eliana breathed. “I had no idea you lived in a place like this.”

Hunter blushed. “The Samples were kind of a big name in Sunset Valley, where we moved from,” he admitted. “There’s money in the family. But I never wanted to live on that. Come on. I want to show you something.”

He took her hand and drew her into the arboretum. “This is mine,” he said, gesturing to the rows of fruits and vegetables. “I’m making a business at it, and it’s almost self-sufficient.”

“You’re amazing,” Eliana said. “These are beautiful.”

Hunter gazed into her eyes. “Why didn’t you return my phone calls?” he asked. “Was it really about your father?”

Eliana started to say something. Then, without warning, she fell into his arms and clung to him as if she were terrified that he would melt away.

At first, Hunter could barely breathe. Then he breathed into her hair. “You’re trembling. You shouldn’t be standing in the night air soaked through like that.” He forced himself to pull away and fetch her some warm sweats.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Eliana said. “You’re so caring and kind.”

Hunter blushed and shrugged. “Thanks,” he said.

Eliana looked at him, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re too good a person to get involved with me,” she said. “You should give it up.”

Hunter scowled. “Why do you said that?” he demanded.

“Hunter,” she said, “I’m pregnant.”

That was one thing he hadn’t been expecting to hear. “What?” he said. “How? I– If you– I would never get in the way–“

She shook her head violently. “It’s Weston Mentary’s. He’s an OK guy. We dated in high school. My dad is engaged to this woman Valerie, and he’s her stepson. Since my mom died, dad’s gotten really frightening. He goes nuts if I leave home for very long. After he told me to stop talking to you, Weston was the only guy I saw much of outside of the family. I guess I just got lonely. I was stupid.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Hunter said sharply.

“I just want you to know that it’s all right that you don’t want to be involved with me.”

Hunte reached out and took her hand.

“Eliana,” he said. “I’ve loved you since I first met you. If you want me with you, your father can’t stop me. Weston Mentary can’t stop me. A baby certainly isn’t going to stop me. If you need help, I can help you. Please let me try.”

“Do you mean that?” Eliana gasped?

Then Hunter did something that terrified him far more than facing down a wolf.

It turned out to be exactly the right thing to do.

When they came up for air, Forest was standing behind them. “Nice technique,” he observed.

Hunter was mortified. “Forest–!”

Forest shook his head. “Please don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “If you can keep Ms. Baerwyn entertained down here, I’ll see what I can do to find her someplace to sleep.”

“What?” Hunter and Eliana said together.

Forest lifted his glasses and gave Eliana a look that chilled her blood. “Ms Baerwyn,” Forest said seriously, “I think it’s a fortunate coincidence that you ended up here. Here we can offer you protection. I don’t think you should go home.”

———

Well, THIS post got a little bit away from me.

StoryProgression hates me. Just as Hunter is getting ready to ask Eliana to be his girlfriend, I get the notification that she and Weston Mentary had a little “unexpected software failure” or however that notification is phrased. I’d intended to ask her to move into the house while Hunter finished his LTW, but now we have a baby too. With all of Hunter’s pets and Veronica still alive and kicking, the household got overstuffed and crazy.

But, hey, Eliana turned out to be a Great Kisser, so Hunter really did have the time of his life :).

She’s also an Angler and a Loser, which seems like it ties into becoming the victim of her father’s plots.

Download a Sample Page updated

Oct6

Believe it or not, I have almost completely finish the gameplay for Generation 5. I am probably going to let myself play until all of Generation 6 become teens and then move to the Wonderlands. Dylan’s teen birthday is “today.”

As of right now, I have no favorite for heir. It’s the first time that’s happened in the entire legacy. Unless someone pulls my heartstrings very soon, I will hold an actual binding heir poll. Well, I will when I get caught up with my posts, which pretty daunting right now.

I realized that I was kind of out of time to upload the Gen 5 household, so I uploaded it to the Exchange. Since the Generation 4 household caused such a mess because I was casual about the CC, I was extra-careful this time. I ran the game without any CC or mods, fixed all the unusual skintones in CAS, and uploaded fresh copies of all three of the Gen 4 triplets and the household. I even sold all the accumulated family inventory so that the household shouldn’t come with a ton of bizarre crap and store items. The resulting net worth of the household turned out be a lot more than I expected….

I’m feeling less morbid, so I hope to get back to posting soon.

Not sure what it means for the blog…

Oct5

But I was just furloughed.

I don’t know how much all of you internationals have seen of the train wreck that is American politics right now, but on Tuesday we failed to fund our government for the upcoming year (federal year is measured October-September). My job is writing human resources applications for a defense lab. Tonight they told me not to work next week.

I don’t know how long this is going to last. Quite honestly, it’s really scary to be living through this. We’re actually doing all right financially, and my husband has the dominant salary anyway. But none of that really feels secure in the face of all this national turmoil.

We’re committed to daycare for a while, so I expect to be taking a bit of a staycation. I don’t feel much like writing, though, so I don’t know how much you’ll see from the blog.

Simantics: The Rest of the Story

Sep30

Just a pic of Jian Wu so that you can appreciate Dragonwife’s catch.

Charles’s only appearance in true ghost form to date was while Sky and Leah were fighting.

Leah is a bit too enthusiastic with Dylan.

Dylan really does seem to have been born with special powers.

Here Sky called the band over to rehearse, and everyone decided that the way to get to the house was to go around the side of the wall and route-fail in a flower bush. I have no idea why the game suddenly decided that the front of the lot was the side away from the road, but fortunately one of the patches added a way to specify, so I fixed it. Though, in retrospect, it was probably the patch that borked things up to begin with.

I also removed some of the flower bushes here so that sims COULD route through if they thought it was really important.

And here’s why I didn’t include Sky going into labor and returning from the hospital.

Here she is trying to satisfy a wish and raise her relationship with Ari enough that she might be able to help with Ari and Adam.

Whoops! I cut the timing a bit too close!

I have no idea why the hospital is so washed out. I have a lot of lighting in the front, but that’s not how I would expect it to reflect. There must be something strange about the textures on the rabbithole. Since everyone seems to have kids at night, I need to try to figure out how to fix this.

And this is how Abby came home from the hospital.

I was furious. That’s not a bronze skintone. It’s a perfectly normal one. The only sim in the entire family tree with a normal skintone is Veronica, and not only is hers all the way dark (Abby’s was all the way pale), but it’s not even the same color slider.

I guess it must have been either a mutation or the game choking on ghost genetics. I pondered what to do and finally decided to change the skintone. Since the silver skintone has never been inherited naturally by a Sample (Charlotte Charles’s immaculately conceived love child has it), I made her silver.

So now you know the rest of the story.

———-

Avalon Gossip Column:

February Callender and celebrity-simalike Amy Winter dated just long enough to get Amy pregnant, then split up.

February then hooked up with doddering Spock Leonard, who died while they were together. Since she immediately popped out a baby girl named Sharon, we might guess what whey were doing when Spock died.

Joanne, who never gave up stalking Spock, must have been pretty crushed when he died.

Then again, her grief was short-lived. Hector Sword started dating Joanne Bookabet and Jeanette Crumplebottom simultaneously, the dog. Apparently, things went so well with Joanne that he broke up with Jeanette. I don’t know if I’m rooting for Hector and Joanne or not here….

Anita Bookabet is now an item with downloaded sim Chris Todd, who is a Showtime Acrobat.

Arya has taken up writing and has gotten quite successful at it.

Blackberry Marmalade asked Alexandria Berg to marry her. Then Alexandria got pregnant. They did manage to get married before the baby was born. At least they sort-of did it in the right order.

Nemo actually gave civilized relationships another go! He and Tara Crystal-Doctor are now going steady. Tara is Chris Doctor’s widow, but is still adult. I didn’t realize she and Chris had such an age gap when they got married.

Ada Sample-Royale passed on. It was time, but it’s always sad to see a spare go. She had a nice life.

Sebastian Hodgins finally asked Lynn Sword to marry him!

Weston Mentary asked Raquel Sword to marry him! It was an exciting update for the Sword family.

5.22 Hope

Sep30

Sky found that it was a relief to have all the ugliness out in the air at last. The reality of Leah’s hurt and anger, while bad, could not live up to the monster she had created in her head.

And she found that it was impossible to work on patching up her mistakes without admitting them first. In retrospect, it was obvious.

She didn’t want to push Leah, who made it clear she needed to take things slowly. So Sky spent a lot of time alone with her thoughts. It was uncomfortable. When she looked back on that night with Xia, the first thing she remembered was how much fun it was. Those were not the kind of thoughts that would save her marriage.

Garry fit right in with the rest of Ghostwriter, and as the only one of them with formal musical training, he was able to nudge the band to make more ambitious music.

The band’s gig at Honeyduke’s became a regular thing. They played every few weeks and began both bringing in a decent amount of money. Some nights, attendance was a bit embarrassing.

But on others, they drew a nice crowd, including some repeat customers who were turning into fans. Sky found the whole idea of having fans incredibly exciting.

Garry usually brought an attractive redhead with him. She seemed to enjoy the music, but she was mostly there for Garry. He introduced her as his fiancee, Arya Bookabet.

Sky found her more than a little bit odd. She wasn’t sure what Garry saw in her.

Hunter, on the other hand, seemed to connect with her immediately.

Sometimes they would stand in the corner and laugh at each other’s jokes instead of really listening to the music.

They fit together so well that Sky almost expected them to drop their other commitments of the heart and run off to elope together.

Maybe they’d be a couple in another time and place somewhere.

Amie Engel was especially appreciative of the crowds Ghostwriter was drawing. And perhaps something else, too.

She slipped Sky a scrap of paper one evening with her payment. “It’s my cell number. Give me a call if you want a little excitement after hours, if you know what I mean.”

She gave Sky a broad wink and chucked her on the shoulder.

Sky got out of there as fast as possible. She was more than a little freaked out. What had made Amie do that? Had Sky been flirting without intending to?

When she got home, she sat and pondered her life and the nature of love.

Perhaps her own love life was a mess, but so, unfortunately, was Adam’s. He still was lonely and not even trying to date. Sometimes Ari showed up at performances and stood in the very back out of Adam’s line of sight.

Ari’s transgression was kind of like Sky’s after a fashion. Perhaps if she could get the two of them back together and help Adam be happy again, she could also gain some hope for her own life.

So she invited Ari over one evening to chat.

“I don’t understand why you’d want to see me,” Ari protested on the phone. But she showed up anyway out of curiosity.

“I was wondering if you’d like to have a cup of coffee and talk about Forest and Adam,” Sky admitted. “Maybe I’m nuts here, but I think you still have feelings for Adam.”

Ari gave Sky and angry look, then dropped her eyes. “Look, he’s the one who won’t answer my phone calls. I get it. He won’t take me back.”

“Ari!” Adam said as he arrived at the door for rehearsal. “What are you doing here?”

Ari looked at him, and her jaw dropped.

“What do you think you are doing?” Ari shouted. “Just leave us alone!”

Sky reached out to grab her and convince her to stay, but she pushed past and ran down the sidewalk.

Sky was left with Adam looking at her accusingly. She felt a fierce pang of regret. Maybe they were all doomed to be lonely.

The pang came again, stronger. She suddenly realized it wasn’t a pang at all.

Sky and Leah agreed that Leah would stay home and watch Dylan. This was not the best time for them to share the intensity of labor together.

Veronica took Sky to the hospital. At least labor was faster and less difficult than Dylan’s had been.

Soon, they were home with Veronica’s newest granddaughter, Abby.

Leah came down the stairs to meet them. Together they gazed at the bundle in Sky’s arms.

“She’s beautiful,” Leah said.

Sky smiled. “Thanks. I think so too.”

Leah’s eyes were softer than she had seen them in what seemed like forever. “You must be exhausted,” Leah said. “Come to bed. I’ll take the first feeding.”

Sky lay little sleeping Abby in her crib and dared to hope that things would be all right.

———-

And here we meet the newest Sample!

Hey, I was trying to track it, but the last post (5.21) was the 250th post on this blog! That includes all my posts apologizing for not posting, but still — 250. Good Grief.

I hope you enjoyed the shout-out to Hunter and Arya, Jo. This was the first time they met in my game, and they throw intense attraction notifications here too. Perhaps if they had met earlier, they’d be together in my game too. As it is, Hunter’s heart is pretty gone for Eliana, and Arya’s engaged to family. What can you do?

5.21 Enough Hiding

Sep29

Late in life, Veronica discovered the joys of domesticity, especially playing with her only grandson.

Her commitments to the Sufficiently Advanced Technology Center seemed more and more to just be inconveniences. It was starting to feel like she had, well, a job. She was sure she would continue to work until her dying day, but she realized that she didn’t have to work FOR anyone. She had plenty of independent research to keep her stimulated these days.

So she made the decision to retire.

“Wow!” Sky said when she heard the news. “I really think you ought to have a party.”

Veronica laughed. “You know what would be the best way to celebrate? Get the family out of the house so I can work on my weather regulator in peace.”

That was how everyone BUT Veronica ended up going to Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop for ice cream to celebrate Veronica’s retirement.

Well, Forest wasn’t there either, but he was at work. For a businessman, Forest worked very strange hours, and most of the family chose not to ask him for details.

“I’ll take Dylan,” Hunter said. “You two newlyweds should get some time to yourself.”

Sky beamed. “You’re the best brother in the world.”

“Don’t tell Forest that,” Hunter replied. He watched Sky strut into the candy shop with a look of concern, but he didn’t say anything.

“Let me buy you a banana split, Mrs Sample!” Sky said.

Leah giggled. “Certainly, Mrs. Sample!”

They at their ice cream together, making eyes at each other.

When they were finished, Sky heard bass music wafting down from the performance space upstairs. “There’s music!” Sky exclaimed.

“Actually, I was thinking maybe Hunter and I could go home and work in the garden,” Leah admitted. “We’ve been too busy, and the plants really need love.”

Sky blinked. She’d never really been able to understand the appeal of working in the dirt. “Do you mind if *I* go up and check out the music?” she asked forlornly.

Leah laughed. “Go ahead. We can meet up at home.”

So Sky headed upstairs to find Garry Crumplebottom jazzing out on the Honeydukes candy apple string bass.

His face lit up when he saw here. “Sky!” he cried. “Grab an instrument and join in!”

So she did. Suddenly, she was transported back to teenagerhood, when she first really discovered the beauty of making music together. Garry had been central to her self-discovery.

They played for hours, attracting a crowd of listeners.

When they at last took a break, Sky took the time to catch up with Garry. He was living by his music these days, mostly playing in theater pit orchestras and recording movie soundtracks. Money hadn’t really begun to flow yet, but he was upbeat. He had Crumplebottom money to live off of while he was making a name for himself.

Feeling suddenly a bit shy, Sky told him about Ghostwriter. “We’re could really use someone like you in our band. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a marvelous idea!” Garry agreed. “I never get to play jazz like this. If the others will have me, I would love to join!”

Eventually, Sky headed downstairs to go home. Amie Engle, the proprietress, waved to her from behind the bar.

“You make some beautiful music,” Amie said. “We’d love to have some love music in here on a regular basis. What would you think about a regular gig for your band?”

Sky was so thrilled she almost couldn’t find the words to say yes!

At home, Leah and Hunter spent a quiet afternoon in the arboretum.

The garden was full of weeds, but the plants underneath them thrived. Leah relished the the quiet time with her hands in the soil. It gave her time to think. She’d done the right thing in pushing Sky to make a commitment, hadn’t she?

“Do you think Sky and I were really meant to be?” she asked Hunter.

Hunter was quiet for a while. “I think you’re both good people,” he said.

“That’s not an answer,” she said.

Hunter shrugged. “I don’t think I can answer. I think you’re good people, but I’m not in your relationship. I can’t tell if you can make it work or not.”

Leah smiled wryly. “Touche,” she said.

Meanwhile, Forest looked after Dylan.

Which might not have been the best idea.

Leah ended up having to leave the garden to rescue Dylan from a full-blown temper tantrum about the candy that Forest wouldn’t let him have.

Once she had Dylan fed and to bed, the phone rang. She answered, expecting it to be Sky.

Instead, it was one of her close friends from high school, looking to catch up.

“Emma! So good to hear from you. How are you doing? I heard your name is Voss-Lorien now! I hope Veltig appreciates you. Did you hear that I go by the name of Sample these days?”

Then there was dead silence on Leah’s side of the conversation.

At last, she choked, “You saw what?”

Dylan was in bed, but Leah was waiting up for Sky when she returned from Honeyduke’s that night.

“I had a fabulous time!” Sky sang as she stepped through the door. “I think Garry Crumblebottom is going to play bass with Ghostwriter! Just wait until you hear him play–” The look on Leah’s face stopped her dead in her tracks.

“I talked to Emma Voss-Lorien this afternoon,” Leah said. When Sky continued to look blank, she continued, “She was at The Garden Gnome while you were having your fun with Xia Wu.”

Oh. Oh dear.

“Leah,” Sky began. “I tried to tell you –“

“How could you have tried to tell me??” Leah demanded. “I am not that hard to talk to!”

“Dad just died, and I felt so alone. Xia had a crush on me in high school. It just got out of hand. We both know it shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t tell you because I was so terrified you’d hate me.”

Leah froze, trying to decide how to react. It hadn’t been hard to see how Charles’s death had crushed Sky. But… this?

“Is the baby mine?” she asked.

Sky cringed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I hope so. It was just the one time.”

Sky’s unusual biology made it a lot more likely that one time had been the time, though, and they both knew it.

———-

Sorry for Leah photobombing the trip the Honeydukes in her wedding dress. I didn’t realize she was still wearing it when they headed to the hangout, and I didn’t have any other outside shots for transition.

Emma was at the pub when Sky and Xia got together, but I think I somehow managed to list her in all the pictures. She and Leah are actually friends on their relationship bar, though I’ve never done anything with it. So this seems like a reasonable way the gossip would have reached Leah.

5.20 Make a Right

Sep25

Soon Sky couldn’t deny it to herself any longer. She was pregnant.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it had been supposed to happen. She and Xia were still exchanging text messages, talking about how much it had never happened.

Now she was in the bona-find soap opera position of having no idea whose kid this was.

While Dylan played, Sky sat down in Hunter’s arboretum to collect her thoughts.

Hunter stood up from his weeding. “You look like somebody kicked your puppy,” he said.

Sky tried to smile. “No, nothing like that.”

Hunter gave her The Look. “You’ve been like this for weeks, and it’s not like you. You’re usually so full of life.” That word always had a bit of an ironic twist when he said it, considering her ghost blood. “Is it something so bad that you can’t tell me?”

Sky hesitated, and she suddenly felt like she was going to cry. “I didn’t something really terrible,” she said.

Hunter gave her his full attention. “No, not that kind of terrible,” she said quickly. With Forest in the house, doing who-knew-what these days, you had to be careful with your word choice. “It’s just… Leah’s going to hate me.”

Hunter nodded. “I’ve been hearing rumors,” he admitted. “I don’t know what the truth is, but I know that it’s going to eat you up if you lie to her. Whatever happens, your family will still love you.”

He wasn’t promising anything about Leah, Sky noted.

And Hunter had been hearing rumors? That was scary. He didn’t get out of his garden all that much. But he was right about one thing. She had to start talking to Leah.

She caught Leah playing with Dylan and took her nervously by the hand. “Could we speak in private for a minute?” she asked.

She felt Leah’s hand tense. “Yes of course,” she said.

Sky pulled her to a corner of the living room. A sense of deja vu washed over her. This felt almost exactly like the last time she’d confessed a pregnancy to Leah. Life shouldn’t be this way!

Again, she just made herself blurt it out. “Leah, I’m pregnant.”

“Eee!” Leah cried out.

“That’s wonderful! I wasn’t expecting it, but if it happened once, of course it could happen again!”

I should have led with the cheating part, Sky thought miserably. Now she had to burst the bubble with the bad news.

But Leah’s smile almost immediately faded to a probing look that gave Sky the chills. “I was just thinking that we haven’t made much progress on wedding plans,” Leah said. “With another baby on the way, I think we should just do it.”

Sky gulped. “Get married?”

“Sure,” Leah said. “I mean, we’ve been living together for quite a while. We have kids together and own a house together. Why shouldn’t we be married too?”

Sky was completely blindsided. “But you wanted to have a big ceremony with flowers and a dress!” she exclaimed. “And your family!” Sky had a decent-sized family, but the Mai clan was huge.

“I decided I don’t need all that,” Leah said firmly. “Let’s just do it, and our second child won’t have to be born out of wedlock. You want to marry me, don’t you?”

Sky had the distinct impression she was being tested. More than that, she had completely lost control of the conversation.

“Of course I want to marry you!” Sky cried.

And before she knew it, Leah had the Samples gathered in the arboretum for them to exchange their vows.

Please let the baby be Leah’s. Please let the baby be Leah’s. The line ran over and over through Sky’s head for the entire short ceremony, so much that she almost forgot her vows.

“It’s about time!” Veronica announced when they had sealed with a kiss.

Hunter looked more thoughtful.

“I’m finally married!” Leah squealed. “I can’t believe it!”

It would be all right, Sky told herself. It had to be. More than anything in the world, she wanted Leah to be happy. From here on out, she would make that her top priority.

Starting right now.

———-

Woo. It kind of aches to write this stuff.

The game seems to calculate the reflection wrong for those metallic skintones in certain kinds of lighting. I try not to use pictures like that, but I didn’t have much choice for these scenes.

I’ll try to keep the pace up for a while. There’s so much story to tell.

Simantics: Eye of Mystery

Sep23

Xia looking out for Sky. Or possibly for either of their girlfriends.

Hard-nosed detective here stood between Sky and Xia for half of their conversation, making photography interesting. Guess he couldn’t stay away from the hot lesbian babes.

Leah exhibits questionable parenting.

Here’s Riddle, haunted by the floating eyes of Mystery. I’d intended this to be a closeup of Riddle. I didn’t even realize I was taking the picture from the inside of Mystery’s head until later. Then it really creeped me out!

Ghost baby!

Or maybe not.

Random shot of Emma Voss, recently married to simbin sim Veltig Lorien. They seem to be pretty happy.

Um, I’m not sure I want to know what Forest is discussing with Muscadine.

And last, but not least, Susie is Sky’s biggest fan.

Avalon Gossip Column:

Jian Wu asked Dragonwife Bard to marry him! She was a smart girl and said yes. Hubba hubba. I want those two to get to the babymakin’ so I can see their kids.

Brenna Ursine-Sample, the Sample who everyone just loves to hate, is stalking Jian.

Sebastian Hodgins gave birth to Lynn Sword’s baby girl, named Andria. They are not yet even engaged, but maybe at their age they don’t care. The day after, Sebastian aged up to an elder. His son with Becky Mentary, Cliffton, is a teenager.

Raen Mai and Mitchell Batchelor had a baby boy named, wait for it, Guiseppe. Raen immediately got knocked up again. These guys are going to have a big family, which is nice because they have awesome genes.

Elderly Faith Cagley found love for the first time after the death of her beloved fiance Willem Yo, who she never bothered to marry. That love was equally elderly Spock Leonard. But it didn’t last long because Spock dumped her.

Joanne Bookabet found true love with Hendrick James-Cagley — the ex-husband of Regina Crystal, ex-fiance of Echo Weaver, and widower of Bella Cagley. It was also short-lived because he died a few days after they committed to each other. Perhaps Joanne will set her sights on someone younger next time.

Alice Bookabet is dating Ignacio Butterfield-Callender, the adopted son of the late Tam and Martin Luther Butterfield-Callender.

Karina Ursine-Sample, Adjo’s youngest daughter, has taken up with Eliana’s Baerwyn’s sister Nicola.

Raquel Sword and Weston Mentary are an item.