Cayenne feels embarrassed eating for two. She doesn't feel embarrassed about eating cake with chopsticks, though. It's an ancient family tradition.
"As far as I've learned, Eris is the only one to exist outside outside of the cycles." Luis has been distressed since finding out about Greta's accident, and tries in vain to explain things to his twin. "Kay cursed her to be that way. It saved her life when reality was overwritten. She's not like us. One of her ancestors actually... doesn't exist. Do you understand? According to one of my past selves, all this means Eris is the only one who had a chance at stopping the resets for good. Now she's lost her memory... what hope do we have...?"
"Kay was our cat," Cayenne reminds him.
Luis seems lost for a moment. "Was he?"
"It's Izalee's birthday. Let's be on our best behavior, okay?"
How quickly Cayenne has adapted to living here, he thinks. How badly she must want to belong, to stay, to give up on their quests.
"Should I mention we're cousins?" Rain questioned, on the way back to the house.
"No," Luis said firmly. "We're too involved already. As soon as Cay and I have the means to, we're going to leave."
"I don't understand. What are you afraid of being involved in?"
In getting you killed! Luis wanted to scream. How many times had he stumbled across visions of her dying? Rain was prone to getting murdered through no fault of her own, just bad luck.... unless... unless...
"Everyone has a few events that will happen to them no matter what," Luis mumbled. "Everyone has a couple of set actions they always find a way to do. They're always born. Always to the same parents. Sometimes they have to live in the same place, or follow a version of the same dream... it's different for everyone yet disturbingly the same... and that means... probability will manipulate itself to force certain things to happen... it's how our reality works now."
"I don't believe in predestination," Rain said defiantly.
"I don't know what the universe's math says your destinies are. But that's not the same as you not having any. Only Eris doesn't have any."
"Why not? Who is she?"
Luis cringes. "I'm not sure anymore."
The awful thought persisted.
What if one of Rain's preset events is that she always dies young?
What if his is that he always goes mad?
There's plenty of cake in the fridge, but a fresh cake is set out for Izalee's birthday.
She makes a wish.
And ages up.
"I don't know what to do with my life," she complains suddenly.
Everybody eats cake, unconcerned about that existential outburst.
Everybody except Luis. Luis is hanging back from the family party, studying the pictures on the wall as if he's never seen them before. At the sight of Rohane's teen photo, he shivers and recoils.
"So what did I do in my past lives, Luis?" Izalee doesn't believe she's ever had a past life, but she does wonder what this disturbed young man will say about her if prompted.
"You are a talented mage, limited by your bitterness and mistrust. It wasn't always like that. There was a time we didn't live in fear. There was a cycle where witches could live openly."
"Sounds like a nice dream," she mutters.
"In a way it was just someone's dream. It turned to a nightmare, though, and now we live in fear. The fear follows you into every new life. You don't like to take risks, and you don't like it when people take risks around you. Sometimes you die as a child, and Gysael there seeks revenge for your death."
"What do you know about my aunt Gysael? Do you know where she is?"
"I know disaster follows her every step... but she's always one. Step. Faster. Our past lives influence us in ways we can't understand, weaving themes through every iteration."
"Fine. Be that way."
Luis continues to gaze at the photos. "Sometimes Rohane betrays you. Becomes one of them that hunts us."
"Does he grow wings, too?"
"No. No one can turn into a fairy. And a fairy cannot be anything other than what it is. Supernatural Control collects people with different kinds of magic, so they can seek out and subdue any kind of magic. The fairies are some of their most effective agents. Most of them are the descendants of a few captured ones, and due to the specifics of fae reproduction, they are helplessly under the ownership and control of their masters."
"Do fae not come to the world in the usual way?"
"No," Luis says, as if that were a silly question. "They're fae."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know how to properly couch this in metaphor, but the very first fae—"
He pauses. "Wait. The elderfae have always been exceptions as well. What if... Eris...?"
"You keep talking about this girlfriend of yours."
"Yuck. Gross. Repulsive." Luis shakes his head rapidly for a moment. "Eris and Jaysen are the key to all this. I don't have all the details yet... but until she can bring him back, we're stuck like this forever. Reliving our lives over and over. We can never die."
"That doesn't sound so bad..."
"It is for me," Luis says, unwavering. "I want to die. Every cycle I become more and more aware of my other lives. Of my failures. The futility of it all."
_____________________________________________________
Etc.: Chapter title is for Melissa, who once called Luis my "destroyer of worlds".
The family structure roll for generation 3 is... couple plus friend! That means, Izalee isn't moving out, even though she is the spare.
TL;DR in my last legacy, Rain did die and Luis did go insane:
There they were, all grown up.
So Eris was searching for the time when everything resets? I feel like I'm asking a lot of questions, sorry. At least Loki is starting to see a clearer path ahead for himself.
ReplyDeletePoor Cayenne. Eating cake with chopsticks must be a delicate operation. Though what a tradition! Does Izalee and Lucida carry it on?
Scarlett didn't have the Chinese Culture hidden trait, for whatever reason, and was unable to pass it to his descendants. His sister Mittens (Cayenne's grandmother) did have it, and passed it on for several more generations. Interestingly, hidden traits carry over when a sim is saved in CAS. (:
DeleteHeh, I feel like I'm such a confusing writer. ^.^' If Luis is correct, Eris is unaffected by the continual resetting of their universe. This puts her in a unique position to prevent it from happening again, but she has failed to stop the responsible party thus far.
To be more precise, every time it resets, Eris reappears at a random time and place, but Luis doesn't explain that and it's just a small detail meant to be inferred by her bizarre behavior in Chapter 1 and/or spelled out by someone later.
Couple plus friend! It's awesome that you get to keep Izalee around. So jealous :D
ReplyDeleteGood to see that Perenna's midlife crisis didn't have her giving up on midriff-exposing shirts entirely. Gotta show off those abs while you still have them! The Elder stage is so cruel to fit Sims.
Indeed!
DeleteThough I end up feeling bad for the helper sims, since it's basically like rolling single parent for them (provided the player lets them reproduce at all). We'll see.
I'm not sure if Luis having a plan is a good or bad thing. It's probably good, but with his magic word beeing "failure", it's a bit of a depressing possibility that he'll fail in giving Eris her memories back. Or just fail in general
ReplyDeleteIt's so good that you get to have Izalee around. And poor Cayenne looks very pregnant right now. Is it long until the baby is born?
So, is Rain going to die? Unless? Unless what?
Hehe. Those "magic words" are just Luis's opinions, even if they are based on observations. You'd probably think what defines your existence is "failure", too, if you spent [unknown number] of lifetimes trying to make sure you never have to come back to life again.
DeleteBaby soon. (:
"...just bad luck..." unless... luck has nothing to do with it. D: Luis is starting to wonder if it's even possible to prevent bad things from happening to Rain.
I feel bad for Luis/Loki (I can't get used to calling him Luis; it seems so... Not him) as it must be hard to relive your past life over and over again. Possibly a vain way of thinking about it, but you know when you randomly remember that super embarrassing thing you did when you were 8? Imagine that but with like five extra lives (or more) worth of embarrassing moments. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the foreshadowing of Rain's death doesn't come to light :c
Damn, eating a cake with chopsticks impressive; I can barely eat it with my hands without making a mess XD
Sometimes it's hard for me to keep writing "Luis" also! But he changed his name last time he showed up in one of my legacies to make a mess, so I figured I'd continue the trend.
DeleteHis memory of his past lives isn't perfect, but there's enough of it there that it causes him a lot of distress. It's meant to be inferred most of his lives were... uh... unpleasant, as well. :(
I didn't even notice the chopsticks until I started taking pictures. xD Then I just had to comment on them. They're hilarious for a while (or I'm just easily amused), but they do get old after watching, say, 10 generations eat their food with chopsticks whether it seems plausible or not. I don't remember which of my heirs finally failed to have the hidden trait. I may have even manually removed it at some point.
I can't imagine that eating cake with chopsticks is particularly easy. >.>
ReplyDeleteMan, life sucks for Loki/Luis. I feel so bad for him. I like how he's a recurring character in your legacies, though, and it's such a nice way to tie all of your sims together in one universe.
I'm happy you're enjoying it! (:
DeleteI'm a little surprised there's so much sympathy for Luis that no one is voicing concern over the universe itself, LOL. Luis's objective is, after all, "everyone dies and STAYS dead this time".
Of course, it wouldn't inconvenience most people in the slightest, since they have no idea they're getting more than one lifetime to begin with.
omg, when I saw the chapter title, I squeed because it is one of my favorite phrases. Because of a cartoon called The Tick, and also because of the Hindu god Shiva, the world destroyer.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember calling Loki/Luis this, but, damn that does sound like me. =P
And now I remember Rain, too. Poor Luis could use some of my poor memory, I think.
You did! You were playing a game with a "summon archers" move... :P
DeleteRain was such a minor character in my Hidden Springs legacy. I think she only appears in two chapters. Her bad luck did have quite the psychological effect on a certain other unstable character, though.