Chapter 89: Watch Thieves

Cayenne didn't expect this sort of reaction from a military man.

"Yes, the vaccinations are mandatory if you're traveling to Sunlit Tides."

Tiberius's experiments become wackier as they go beyond tofu.

Chervil frowns. "Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich? Doesn't seem like health food, Dad."

"I told you I'm not a vegetarian because of my health or because I like animals. It's because-"

"Blah blah environment. I know, Dad."

"Then get over it and try this sandwich."

Cayenne stays up every night reading medical journals.

Cayenne's fascinated by it, but Chervil can't even follow the unfamiliar words she's tossing around.

Tiberius and Morgana have found a suitable new home for sale, and will be moving there.

They're still in good health, and they have a lot of life ahead of them.

See you around. ='(

So off they go.

To be happy without us!

Cayenne tries to decide what to wear. People are always telling her she's overdressed.

Those people just don't understand how cold it is in the hospital. Cayenne feels like it takes all weekend wearing a sweater to recover from a week freezing to death at work.

Olive and Basil's daughter, Pepper, has grown into a toddler.

Percy joins Basil on the balcony to make small talk.

Basil says Olive has really taken to being a mother. Pepper will soon have a younger sibling.

Seriously? This is seriously the third time this week.

Olive and Basil had a second child, a son they named Coriander.

Cayenne and Chervil are expecting their first.

Percival is super excited about having a grandchild grow up in the house with him.

He's been lonely since Tiberius left, not that he'd admit it.

"I should be the one giving you a massage," Chervil laughs.

"Nonsense. I'm a doctor!"

Morgana and Tiberius visit for a video game night.

Tiberius is now retired. Percival is still passionate about acting.

Percy visits Loki with increasing frequency, as he begins to accept that he won't live to see his youngest son have anything close to a normal life. Loki just isn't getting better. He will probably spend the rest of his life locked away in here, and though nobody has blamed Percival, the old man blames himself.
 
Today Loki has little to say, except to complain that they won't give him his shoes.

How is he supposed to break out of here without any shoes?

Loki provides an in-depth description of every patient who has ever occupied this room.

Some of them got old and died here.

Percy tells Loki about little Coriander, and about Cayenne's pregnancy.

Loki is horrified to picture his twin sister pregnant.

"My watch!" he shrieks suddenly. "First my shoes, now my watch! Those THIEVES. They just... POP out of the walls, and bam, there goes any scrap of humanity you've got left."

POP is a fairly accurate onomatopoeia for the unlocking of the locks on the doors in this place, but Percy gets an entirely different mental image.

Chervil and Cayenne bring home a baby girl.

They name her Ceth.

Chervil receives some admiration for repairing the dish washer.

Yay! Approval from Dad!

Tiberius is oblivious to his son's insecurity issues.

Though he's moved out of the house, Chervil feels he sees more of his father now than he has ever before. Retirement is a hell of a thing.

Sir Kay puts in an appearance.

Catch.

"Ah. Hello." Percy kneels down to pet the ethereal being.

I'm curious about the baby, an amused voice echoes through Percy's head.

"I hope she's normal," Percy frets.

The cat purrs and nuzzles Percy's hand, seeming concerned. You're getting weak.

Cayenne enjoys watching her husband work out at home.

Chervil decides he likes it when the situation is reversed.

Before too long, the couple is celebrating their daughter's first birthday.

She has Abbie's blond hair.



___________________________________________________________________________
Etc.: So, Tiberius moved out. I hate letting go of sims, but I felt like it was time to set the poor guy free.

Here, Ceth is pronounced the same as "Seth". She overly resembles her mother. Cayenne was only required to have one child, so Ceth is the next heir. The roll for her generation is single parent, one child, rock star, perfect children, partier.

Somewhere in there I installed Showtime. An unintended side effect was the world adventures chest I had in the house ceased to function. I couldn't open it to get the objects inside. My attempts to fix it eventually led to the chest being clickable again, but then it was empty. I lot every family photo that wasn't either on the wall or in someone's inventory. *sad* I also lost some trophies and tomb-raiding loot. Remember this cautionary tale. Anything that can go wrong with a new expansion WILL go wrong.

Lastly, I'm going to [redacted] for two weeks. There will be no further updates during this time, only PAIN. I'll be back on May 5th. So I leave you with this image:

Chapter 88: Cake Pirate

Chervil works hard on looking and sounding presentable.

When at work, a clear voice and zero wrinkles on one's clothes are everything.

Cayenne's work days are long. And once she gets home, within a few hours she usually gets a call asking she return to the hospital to help with an emergency. She never considers refusing.

 
Chervil dreams of a day when he'll be rich and successful, and she won't be wrapped up in her work.

But since her work is medical science, he wonders if it's rude of him to want to take her attention away from it.

Percival has managed to donate most of his money to charity, and to making sure Parsley isn't homeless and Loki's safe in his metaphorical padded cell; Cayenne's inheritance will mainly be this house and the treasures no one's ever going to sell, so Chervil can safely tell himself he's pushing himself so far in his own career for the money.

But he's not. He's in this for society's approval.

Basil visits his childhood home, hoping to get away from his pregnant wife for a while.

Olive is apparently insufferable, always going on about how she wants to move inland to Appa-loser Plains, or whatever. Her great-grandparents had an orchard there, and she'd have been doing well for herself in agribusiness if she hadn't fallen in love with Basil. Because of Basil, she stayed in Barnacle Bay and followed her parents into the film industry. Love has ruined Olive's dreams.

"I ask myself why we can't just fall out of love," Basil complains. "Why can't she just abandon me? Why can't I just abandon her for her own damn good? I hate to see the woman unhappy."

"Maybe you'd like Appaloosa Plains," Chervil suggests.

"Don't be crazy," Basil snorts.

"What? What are you looking at?"

Basil sees what Chervil is looking at. Someone moved the Vivian statue in front of the gryphon one.

Basil scowls. "Dammit, someone needs to get rid of that thing."

Morgana's mood swings are too controlled to be considered a disorder, but Tiberius certainly thinks about Cayenne's books when, in the span of a few dozen seconds, Morgana goes from sadly pensive to passionately throwing herself at him.

"Des would be so jealous," she giggles when she finally releases his lips. Seeing his confusion, she reminds him that Desdemona Pesce - now Desdemona Lee - has been her best friend since high school. Seeing his discomfort, she adds, "I know, I know. Des is a handful. It's just funny. My best friend... wanted... your best friend."

"Well that fits. Percy is a handful too."
 

Poor Max.

Morgana isn't getting any emotional support from Max's side of the family, Tiberius has surmised. Judging by Vivian, the Fleets are not the picture of kindness.

Morgana is oddly not put off by seeing the room Tiberius calls his own.

"Sorry for making you play the long game," she sighs. "This is where I make it up to you."

He strokes her back, his right hand starts edging under her shirt. "I hope you don't mean literally. This room doesn't exactly have a door."

"The bathroom has a door," she points out.

Percival greets Raymond Shore, holder of the Goldbeard family fortune. His little girl is heir to the Goldbeard name itself, given it instead of Shore; Raymond was already born and named when Reginald Goldbeard was killed, leaving the estate scrambling to find the next person in line who was of age to control it. Madness. One would think this family was royalty.

"Strange meeting all the stars in a dump like this," Raymond says idly. He's keenly aware that his family holds what should probably belong to this other man.

"Well the people with the cameras kept finding the other places we went to party," Percy laughs.

Luckily, Raymond thinks, my distant relation is eccentric and unlikely to make a power grab. Still, I will be vigilant.

Loki has political opinions. They actually make sense.

To Cayenne, Loki will always be the only person who ever read the same books she was reading, just so she'd have someone to talk to about them. 

She will never give up on him.

And of course....

...he told the best ghost stories.

In spite of his best judgement, Chervil returns to the gym regularly.

He has quite different sibling issues.

"Hi!" Jade says loudly, making Chervil jump.

"I'm so sorry about my mom!" she says, once she has his attention. "I mean, I guess your mom too."

"It's okay," Chervil says. "I barely know her. I can't really claim her as my mother."

"You shouldn't have had to find out that way though, bro. That was just... wrong." She wipes an over-emotional tear from her eye. "If you didn't know, my name is Jade. I always wanted a sibling. Y'know? Growing up was lonely! My parents off doing their shady things all the time."

Chervil's mind skips over the shady things part of Jade's claim. "I'm sure your mother meant well."

She gives him that half lidded you can't be serious stare. For a second, he thinks she might not respond.

"Aw, shucks. You don't have to say that, Chervil." He doesn't remember telling her his name. She must have asked someone. "It was horrible. And our mom... she used to be great. Really great. But now that she's older, she's all weird. I guess people change, bro."

Jade grabs Chervil into a tight hug before he can back away.

"I'm here for you, okay?"

"Sure, kid," Chervil agrees numbly.

Loki is brought home for a little visit! How exciting!

Cayenne is still insistent on defying the doctors and inviting her neurotic twin to the wedding party.

At first, Loki does everything within his power to focus on his father and not lose sight of him amidst everything else going on in his head.

Eventually Loki fails, and spends the rest of the afternoon playing with the furniture in the old dollhouse, trying not to freak out. He doesn't even resist when he's taken back to the hospital later.

Cooking dangerously.

For some, old age shows up blissfully unnoticed.

For others, it's stubbornly ignored.

Morgana's youngest child recently moved out of her house, so she feels free to take her relationship with Tiberius wherever she wants.

"Ah, those kids in the kitchen don't know what they're doing," Tiberius grumbles.

"It tastes fine," Morgana reassures him. She's already retired, and she hopes Tiberius soon does the same.

Tiberius plots to move into a new house with Morgana, one of these days.

"I guess I should feel odd," Percy comments. "I haven't had a girlfriend since high school."

"No you shouldn't. Fuck the world and its expectations."

"I don't know about the world, but most of the women in town..."

Tiberius grimaces. "Not what I meant, nerd!"

Jade is struggling in school, so Chervil helps her with her homework.

When Jade tells him she once tried to sleep with a teacher for better grades, he can't even wrap his brain around that sort of squick. But he can almost understand why Iris flipped out when she saw Jade talking to him.

Some sparring.

Both men move at difficult-to-follow speeds. Percival is not any slower than he was when Chervil was a kid.

The difference is now, Chervil is faster, and defeats the house's older martial artist 2-0.

Even with a five star chef in the house, it's rare for everyone to gather for a meal.

When they do, they talk about anything and everything, and wonder why they don't do this more often.

The day of the wedding arrives. Percival would have liked a huge town event, but Cayenne and Chervil opted for a small house party, where they will take their vows among family and friends.

They probably would've been married sooner, but Cayenne wanted to wait for Parsley to fly back in from Europe.

Loki isn't here. It was decided crowds would be too stressful for him.

Since they decided on a traditional Barnacle Bay ceremony, the groom is dressed like a pirate.

 The couple begin their vows while the guests are still finding seats.

 Some clapping and rice-tossing.

Jade is here without Iris.

Then it's back to the kitchen for cake.

Basil's wife Olive is also in attendance. Their newborn daughter, Pepper, is with an expensive sitter.

Abbie is happy she's here to see this. She's spent a fair amount of time in communication with her children since meeting them as teens. It makes her sad, how one twin turned out so normal, and the other turned out so... not.

Chervil ditches the pirate outfit so he can spar with Parsley.

After the party winds down and the guests have left, Percival and Tiberius have a few drinks upstairs.

"I don't normally tell people this," Percy says randomly, "but you're one of my favorite people. Um. That's not what I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you, one of my ancestors was an elf, and my son, the Loki one, has some supernatural affliction."

Tiberius scowls. This guy once criticized him for drinking too much.

"I should not have kept it a secret," Percy goes on. "Loki deserved support, and I just... pretended he was normal, when he wasn't."

"I can't keep track of what film you're going on about," Tiberius says.

"Not film. It's true. It's all true. Kay used to talk to me. In simlish. Real words."

"This proves it," Percy says, showing Tiberius one of his sim-fu moves.

"Proves what?"

"I don't know. It worked in a movie once."

____________________________________________________________________________
 Etc.: Vivian Fleet, Parsley's mother, was also Max's mother! Imagine my surprise when I found out. Max was her oldest kid, while Parsley was the youngest.

Turns out Vivian had some really crazy age glitch I had to go and fix. She should have been dead ages ago. When I noticed she had become a great-grandmother and was still wandering around as an adult, I manually triggered an age transition to elder. She then aged and died normally.