1.7 Second Gnome Spawns

A gloomy dive bar? Is there anywhere you won't go to promote your political agenda, Rock?

The windows are frosted over from the chill outside, but the inside of the Law family's cottage is toasty warm. The strawberries and tomatoes are ready to pick. Coverage of a sports game blares from the radio. Fairuza, busy washing the dishes, listens to the sound of her own voice theatrically narrating the plays and dryly making predictions.

Her career has taken many odd turns. In high school she thought she'd be following in her father's big loud footsteps. She thought she'd jock her way onto his team, The Starlight Shores Gnomes, and then somehow put up with being compared to him her entire life.

Instead she's in Aurora Skies, discovering she has more talents than she ever knew.

The world may not be watching Aurora Skies like it watches Starlight Shores, but... she's made peace with her own insignificance.

The door swings open. Her husband is home. Before their daughter existed, Fairuza and Rock went to social events together... but now they make their rounds separately, while the other stays home with little Ivy.

"It's finally ready!" Rock says, so excited he sounds short of breath. He must have biked here in a hurry.

Faiuza crinkles her nose. "What's ready?"

"The new house! Everything is in order, so we can move in!"

"Really?! So soon?!"

It seems like only last week they were carving up the kitchen to make space for a nursery because they could not afford a bigger place, and now they're moving into a four bedroom house.

In reality, though, it's been a long grind to get here. Ivy is almost ready to start school.

They already have a buyer for their cottage. They're able to leave it much nicer than when they found it, so it fetches a higher price than when they purchased it. Every scrap of those funds went towards the last payment on their new place... meaning they move out tonight.

For Rock it's a bittersweet goodbye, as he's grown attached to their small space in the universe, but Fairuza is ready for change. She rushes to pack up their things.

The new house sits precariously close to the ocean, but if Rock isn't worried about flooding, Fairuza isn't worried about flooding either.

The move happens just in time for Ivy's birthday.

Her parents blow what remains of their money on a cake.

Ivy Law becomes a child. She may have her mother's eyes and hair color, but the resemblance to Rock is uncanny.

Now that there's room for more sims in the household, Fairuza wants to know how Ivy would feel about some younger siblings.

Here's Fairuza and Rock's new bedroom, for making new babies.

Ivy turns out to be a voracious reader, but she's not sure how she feels about siblings yet.

In some stories they're helpful to have around, but in other stories they're nothing but trouble...

Ivy doesn't stick with books meant for elementary school students for very long, though. Here she is reading Gerrymandapalooza!, a legal text Rock had to familiarize himself with for work reasons.

There is a tiny back porch, of sorts, connected to Fairuza and Rock's bedroom. Fairuza slips out every morning to practice her sim-fu moves on a practice dummy.

And of course, the ocean is right there for fishing... though the fish don't bite much in this particular spot.

Auroras. A friendly reminder that solar winds are constantly trying to kill you, and would succeed if not for the Earth's magnetic field.

Rock and the gnome share an unlikely love for rom-coms.

A second gnome spawns, as if in response to the other one's crushing loneliness.

Fairuza and Rock enjoy a cold morning by staying in bed under the covers.

Morning sickness intrudes on her happy moment.

Ivy is glad she won't have to share her huge bedroom with a baby. There are two smaller rooms accessible from her parents' bedroom, and they're remaking one of those into a nursery.

Pregnancy has turned Ivy's normally energetic mother into... this!

Someone who goes to bed before 9PM!

Wildlife was a frequent sight at the old cottage, but now that the family lives on the outskirts of town, it's more of a daily occurrence than a weekly one.

The game starts playing the "burglar is on the lot" music. Pssssh.

Oh.

The thief grabs the shower..... and then the television.

Fairuza has the brave trait, but since she's pregnant, she can't risk fighting the thief, and her only option is to take pictures with the thief to distract him until the cops arrive.

The policeman took his sweet time getting here, but it's all worth it when he beats the snot out of the burglar and returns the shower and television.

Spring Gnome watches the violence passively.

Ivy is too shaken to sleep after what just happened, so Rock reads a book to her.

To appease her father, Ivy pretends to fall asleep...

...then, once he leaves, she sits back up and stays awake most of the night to read the book's sequel.

Rock's main political concerns have been environmentalist stuffage, but now he has a second pet issue: criminal rehabilitation programs, to make crooks stop crooking.

His opponents still contend that routing failure is the biggest issue plaguing Sim Nation.

Ivy is doing a family tree project for school, so she's full of questions this morning.

"I can't tell you your brother or sister's name yet, because we don't know which it is," Rock explains.

"How about a unisex name?" Ivy pleads. She doesn't want the tree she's making to be incomplete.

"You let us worry about that."

"Fine. What about your parents' names? Are they in the graveyard? And did you have brothers or sisters?"

"I have a sister. Her name is August, and she lives in Starlight Shores, where our parents lived. They died before your mother and I moved to Aurora Skies."

"What were their names?"

"Stardust and Brandon Woods."

"Why didn't August come with you?"

"Hmm, well, we moved here for your mother's job."

"So August had a job already?"

"Yes. She's a teacher. She was a lot older than me... I had to stay with her for a little while when our parents were too old to legally take care of me."

Rock was evasive when it came to his wife's family, so when Fairuza gets home later that day, Ivy starts up another round of questioning.

Fairuza shrugs. "My father is Milo Rossi, the sports star. He had sole custody of me after my mother was arrested for... uh... theft. Like what that man was doing in our house. I was a baby at the time so I didn't really know her, but when I was a teenager she tracked me down and... I did some pretty stupid things to impress her. Long story short I'm in Aurora Skies because they won't extradite or prosecute me for what I did as a child."

Ivy nearly chokes on her food. "What?"

"I'm telling you this so you don't do stupid things to impress anyone."

"How could you..."

"There's no justification really. I was originally Fairuza Rossi, but I changed my last name to my mother's to help me get out of my home sector, and... well... there was kind of a vampire involved."

"Why?"

"It's complicated. Oh, and, your grandpa's a werewolf. That's why he's so strong. Well, he's even stronger in his second form... but anyway. I'm normal, so I assume that means you and your new sister or brother are normal."

"Mom are you feeling okay...?"

"Soooo in conclusion, you can write 'Milo Law' and 'Kirstin Law' on your little construction paper tree and call it a day. Don't talk about the werewolves, don't say your grandpa is a sports legend... just play it cool."

"Mom..."

"Yeah?"

"I think pregnancy has made you crazy."

"Maybe I am? But it's all true. Ask your father. My cousin hit him with a fireball spell once."

Ivy glowers, certain her mother is pulling her leg. Werewolves don't exist, and thieves named 'Law'? That's just bad fiction. "If you have cousins I need them on the tree..."

Ivy's younger sibling turns out to be a girl.

Her name is Astral, and she has this big nursery all to herself... though the presence of a second crib indicates her parents plan on a third child.

(It's not the same fox rug. It's a bigger fox rug.)

Fairuza and Rock waste no time getting started on that third child.

Fairuza doesn't have any siblings, to her knowledge, but she grew up with cousins in the house so there was never a dull or quiet moment. For whatever reason, she wants to recreate that environment for her daughters.

She may not be a werewolf, but she misses her 'pack'.






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Etc.: So, again, Fairuza's backstory is a bit different in this blog than the other one. Not terribly important. Just a minor detail.

I was so mad when she couldn't fight that burglar! Let. Me. Tell. You. I was cussing.