1.14 So Many Books

"So many books!" Finley exclaims. Each one filled with yellowing paper, and long streams of curly lettering, bearing only a passing resemblance to modern simlish. "And what's with this ugly statue?"

 

Junpei has had better luck deciphering the old-style handwriting. "I think it's a golem."

"...So it can come alive and do something?"

"Yeah."

"...You're kidding, right?" Useless question. She knows he's not.

"It's probably harmless. The very first goalies were goal-'ems, because real human beings cannot be trusted with important tasks such as sports calls."

She groans. Now he's kidding.

"Don't touch it," Junpei amends.

Finley is getting very high marks in school. Fountain Corporation, the local installment of Doo Peas, has already expressed interest in granting her an internship when she graduates, and Finley is seriously considering asking to be placed somewhere at the Daily Springs. If it's not something she'll enjoy, at least she'll have Reisa to goof around with until the internship is over.

Mab is thrilled to see her daughter maturing and putting effort towards a normal sort of life. She suspects it's a trauma response, but she'll take it.

What Mab doesn't know: her kids are poking around in their father's stuff instead of studying strictly for school every afternoon.

Finley has decided her resentment of her mother's apprentice is childish and pointless, and once she loses the attitude, Accalia's a bit more helpful with advice.

"Wands?" The young dryad's upper eyelids droop, her expression of deep thought. "They're like training wheels. I use one to focus my magic, and it reduces the chance I'll mis-aim, or harm myself." She goes into the details of how she created her wand from the bark of a tree she'd fused with, then painstakingly attuned it to her own essence and magical signatures, and after a few minutes Finley's brain sort of shuts off, unable to follow the mage-o-babble, no matter how much she wants to.

In an attempt to snap back awake, Finley opens a drawer and withdraws a glowstick of her own. 

"I found this," she says excitedly. 

The wand picks up on Finley's energy, refocusing it into a harmless, but visible form. As Finley waves it around in the air, a soft trail of light follows.

"It's a focusing crystal," Accalia observes. It's acting as though the teenager radiates energy without trying. Accalia wonders if she should be concerned. "How did you forge a bond with it?"

"I didn't. Or I didn't mean to. Maybe it's just a special kind of mineral, and it works with anyone?"

"Let me see it," Accalia says, hesitant. Finley shrugs and hands it over. Accalia examines it, and twirls it in the air a bit, but nothing happens. In her hands, it's a cold rock. "A.M.," she curiously reads the tiny crude letters carved into the bottom of the hilt. "Someone's initials?"

"It means you should only use it in the morning," Junpei pipes up from the couch. "Why, I bet there's a P.M. one close by, and if you put them together, you can STOP TIME."

Accalia allows the silence to hang in the air for a while, then hands the wand back to Finley. "I hope your mother isn't going to skin me when she figures out what you're doing."

Finley snorts. "Well she shouldn't. I'm not psychic linking with ghosts and getting depressed. That's all she's worried about, isn't it?"

Accalia shrugs. "Regardless, if this is a true wand—and I don't know that it is, it's safer if you use it—rather than your hands, as you saw Nesswen doing. At Nesswen's level, a focusing tool is more of a hindrance than an aid. But until you're that powerful—and let me just drill some realism into you: you won't ever be—you'll need something like this to cast even the simplest charms."

Finley's nose crinkles. 

"I don't know about that," Junpei says softly, more serious than his last contribution to the conversation. "I think I've figured this one out..."

Protective glyphs. It doesn't surprise Accalia that Junpei would be interested in learning these sorts of spells, considering what happened to him.

Still, his brazen use of something he'd only just read in a book and quick learning of it is unsettling. And he's controlling the flow of energy without aid. A lapse in concentration, and he'll burn his fingers off. But he's a teenager, and he's not going to listen to her warnings, is he?

"Alright," Accalia says, before turning and walking out the door. "I'm staying out of this."

"...Did I do something wrong?"

"Hmph. Don't mind her."

Random valuable rock. It wasn't here yesterday, but it's here today.

It fell from space. 

The science center will pay money for it.

 Mab and Charles have coffee at Han's.

"So your wife was... a djinn... the entire time. And you were raised by a secret agent paranormal investigator. But when some little spooks got into your house, you were scared?"

"Sarala was convinced it was one of Larkspur's tricks. That's why we were freaking out. She thought we'd been found." His eyes fill with tears. Every memory of happier times hurts.

"I still think there should be some kind of justice for my son," Mab changes the subject. "And your wife."

"I don't think secret government organizations have complaint boxes."

"Don't we have rights?"

Charles takes a long, dramatic sip of his coffee before responding. "No."

"Well, where do I find these people?"

"Why would you want to? What would you do?"

"I... I don't know." Mab folds her arms, chilly in the night air. "You're very calm about all this."

"I can't fall apart. I have to think of my daughter and my son."

Mab certainly knows how that feels. "Aren't you worried they'll come after you?"

"I'm not useful to such people." He stares at her for a while. "You, though..? They've probably got their eye on your family."

Charles goes back inside, where the coffee maker gives him some trouble.

Graduation is fast approaching, so when Finley and Junpei aren't secretly hanging out in a dark castle's previously-sealed room studying the dangerous and confusing remnants of a mad sorcerer's work, they are consumed by their academic studies.

So, Finley insists they go to the water park after school on Friday to "have more fun in their lives."

Junpei doesn't see what's so fun about wasting water.

...Jump!

Was Rusty Menon checking me out? Finley wishes she could get her psychic abilities to work. Like, right now. This is an emergency.

"Rusty's going with Cheri now, and that means everyone in our graduating class is paired up except for us, Garrett and Kelley. Garrett gave me flowers, but Garrett's a jerk. Kelley keeps starting conversations with me, and he's nice, but he's Tommy's uncle and that's a little awkward, and his face... I mean, that nose... wow. Do you think I'm being shallow, Junpei?"

"Drawing upon his fine command of language, Junpei said nothing," her brother answers.

Finley complains about her final exams, while Reisa, who graduated already, is totally uninterested in this teenage drama and wants to talk about her life as a young adult instead. 

Junpei gets up early every morning to weed and water the garden.

Before he goes to school, the stove must be checked on as well.

Today is the big day! 

The twins don't have a big birthday party, but a couple of friends are here to help eat these two cakes. Reisa is fashionably late; she walks in the door just in time to see Finley blow out her candles.

Finley wishes for world peace.

And becomes a young woman.

Her twin's cake is brought to the table next.

"Bet you feel lucky you get another birthday," recently-teenaged Lewis comments.

Junpei just smiles, finding the implied context a little too cruel of a subject to bring up.

Hooray! Young adulthood.

Mab holds up the camera, so Junpei strikes a goofy pose.

Mab's smile hides her tears.

When the twins get a moment to talk amongst themselves, Junpei worries about the future. "You're really looking to get hired on at the Daily Springs?"

"I guess so," Finley says. "What about you?"

"I... don't know." Junpei frowns thoughtfully. "I really don't know."

Reisa and her boyfriend-since-prom, Leslie O'Dourke, are running into problems now that Leslie wants to settle down and start a family. Reisa spills her sorrows to Accalia, who has had slightly longer as an adult than she and Finley, and has yet to marry or start a family.

Accalia stares blankly at her slice of cake. Her passion for Vance burns hot right now, but she hasn't thought of starting a family. She's been taught to think in terms of her colony; no one there has children early. Some wait for several lifespans. But Accalia and Vance are so human they may not have several lifespans, especially if he won't ever be interested in the arcane.

Accalia wonders if Reisa's issues have to do with losing her mother, but isn't tactless enough to broach the subject. As far as Reisa knows, Accalia and her siblings have a 'skin condition', are perfectly normal, and are ignorant to the true reason Sarala 'vanished'. Reisa doesn't know of the dryad colony hidden in the mountains, or of their involvement in Junpei's return to the living.

"My father wants to see a wedding," Reisa groans. And her mother can't be there.

"My father is very impressed with Finley's scores," Reisa informs Mab, hiding her bitterness about how non-pleased her father was with her own scores. "He's going to hire her. No question."

Mab nods distantly. She'd hope Finley is getting this position from her own merits, as opposed to getting it for being Reisa's friend, or as an apology for being traumatized for life while visiting Reisa.

Formal graduation is held the next day at city hall. 

Finley just wants to hurry up and get to what comes after graduation: lunch.

The morning after Junpei's legal adult birthday didn't feel any different than the morning before that, and the morning after that doesn't feel any different, either. The only weird thing is not needing to attend school anymore. The only new thing is the garlic is ready for harvesting. Junpei is sure this will come in handy, if he ever needs to antagonize a vampire.

While his sister begins her first day working for the newspaper, Junpei wanders aimlessly through the meadows, wondering what he should do with his life. He hopes being literally given a second chance at it doesn't mean he's obligated to do anything important.

"Admiral," Junpei solemnly greets a butterfly that crawls onto his arm.

Finley is home for dinner. 

"How was the first day?" Junpei inquires casually.

"Exhausting," Finley responds. She picks at the weird veggie rolls he crafted for supper. Maybe she should have gotten takeout from the diner or something.

"Just taste them, please?" he begs.

She does. "Okay... they're not so bad."

"The soil here is very good for tomatoes," he reminds her, for what feels like the thousandth time.

"Well anyway. They were mostly just showing me around, bombarding me with info. It'll take me a while to judge what things are really like." 

It'll take a while to figure out which smiling office workers are secretly mean people, and which parts of the info-spam were important. Finley barely got to see Reisa today at all.

At night, when everyone has gone to sleep, Finley plays with her magic.

One day Mab will sense what she's doing, or one day Finley will just tell her... but for now, it can wait.

Ain't afraid no ghosts.




____________________________________________________
Etc.: Oliver would never have used a wand. Ever. No one would have taken him seriously.

Aric, though... sure.

Ahem. Generation 2 begins. As should be obvious now, Finley and Junpei are both witches. I used MasterController to switch their lifetstate, and subtracted 4000 from family funds. If I had an elixir shop in my town, it would cost 2000 for each potion to turn a sim into a witch. So two potions, 4000. 

I'm excited to play around with this new life state!

Masterson's house is now classified as an Academy. So that's why Finley and Junpei can hang out there. In-story, though, it's a dilapidated property the city has not been able to sell.

Reisa gained the "dislikes children" trait when she aged up, and a couple of days later, she and Leslie O'Dourke broke up!

HOMEMADE is one of generation 2's goals, hence Junpei starting the garden. They are not allowed to have cake, but screw it, I'm counting the cake as the ending of Mab's generation, rather than the beginning of the twins'. I didn't let them put away the cake leftovers; I put them in the recycle bin. From now on, everybody lives off the garden.