Franklin D. MacDougal is the head of the science & medical department, and to say Solana Law is nervous to be summoned to his office is an understatement, given the odd nature of her recent work.
"Shut the door, please," he commands, as he shuts the book he was reading. The walls of his office are lined with bookcases, yet the room smells freshly floral, from a source Solana can't discern since the sunflowers on his desk are fake.
She's heard he's an eccentric man, and difficult to have more than five words with, but he's well-respected in the field and has a reputation for helping the most promising students achieve dream job placements.
She sits down when he asks her to.
"Yes, this is about your 'ghost' paper," he confirms, before she can ask. "Well written, very thorough. A brilliant student like you should be graduating with high honors and going on to be a big name in her field, but that's not going to happen if you don't drop this ghosts angle."
Solana takes a moment to find her voice. "I don't understand. Do you think it's a prank? I can-"
"Oh no, I know all of your findings are genuine," he interrupts her, a quality she always finds especially annoying from men, "It's just that only certain types of people can sense spirits, and those people tend to disappear."
She blinks at him.
"This kind of thing crosses my desk from time to time."
"I'm not dropping my research. It's valid research..."
He narrows his eyes at her. "Yes, I know. I need you to listen carefully. The university isn't my primary employer. I was posted here by the military. It's my job to forward brilliance like yours to them. You can think of me as a talent scout. I'm stationed here so I can pick up the best and brightest before the private sector sees them. They disappear. They get new identities. Usually it's a good deal to be a top secret black ops type scientist, it really is... but not in your case. The last time I turned their attention to someone like you, there was an incident."
"What kind of incident?"
"The classified kind of incident. Goodness, girl, what do I have to say to frighten you?"
"So you're threatening to not graduate me? Or just threatening me away from my research so someone else can have the credit?"
"No, no, no," a small, offended frown crosses his face. "I'm threatening to save your life."
He pauses, and then, his skin seems to blur and distort.
After a moment he's a different being. He has greenish skin, bright hair, and translucent orange wings that sound like a crackling fire as they twitch behind him.
"Maybe you'll find it all more convincing if the speaker isn't an elderly human."
Solana stops looking angry. She just stares at him with this weird smile on her face.
The fairy stares back. "What? What are you looking at me like that for? Do I look ridiculous? This is why I don't go off script. I'm just supposed to quietly, quietly report you..."
"You do look a little curious, no offense... it's just... someone told me there are supernatural creatures working to make sure normal people continue to not believe in magic. I didn't believe them at the time."
"I'm sure there's some reason we do what we do," he says.
"Are you really Professor MacDougal?"
"Yes! Well... it's a fabricated name. But if I'm not him, there is no such person."
"And those wings are not some kind of hologram technology...?"
He looks increasingly upset. "This is why I don't go off the script... this is WHY I don't go off the script!"
"Calm down... it'll be okay. Just tell me what this is about." Solana knows a natural response might be to remain hostile towards this creature, but she can't help picking up on how distressed it is, and that makes her feel sympathy.
Professor MacDougal does not calm down. He explodes into a tiny ball of fire, as the room rises to uncomfortable temperature. "It's! About! Your well-being!" he squeak-yells.
Solana stands up and starts backing towards the door, keeping her voice calm. "Okay..."
"If they! Find out! What you are! They'll grab your whole family! Just like! The last time! I had a student! Like you! Or should I say! Like your sister!"
So he knows about her sister's powers. Solana does not like this development. "Who is they?"
"I have! A whole collection! Of papers just like yours! From kids you've never heard of! Because they have disappeared!" The fairy flies over to one of his bookcases. "See! See for yourself! See!"
Solana keeps backing towards the door.
"Make! Your! Senior! Thesis! More! BORING! Or! You'll! Regret! It!"
"What are you?"
"I'm a fairy! Obviously!"
He resumes his taller form and the room falls under a sudden chill, instead of an unnatural heat. Perhaps he somehow drew all that energy back into himself. He shows her a symbol on a piece of paper, as if it should mean something to her. "Captive bred," he explains. "But I've still got a little bit of my ancestral magic."
"Are you giving me an inkblot test?" Is this an elaborate psychological evaluation?
"...No, this looks a lot different if you can see in infrared. It should still work though."
"Uhh..."
"It's a spell! You can't leave. Not until you've seen what will convince you."
"So I can't walk out that door?"
"Physically impossible."
"You could get in a lot of trouble for kidnapping me."
He takes on a mocking tone, "Help, help, Professor McaDougal grew wings and cursed me to not leave his office.. someone call the police!"
Solana tries to go towards the door, but finds her legs won't move.
"This assignment has gone on too long. I've learned your ways. Empathy, and guilt, and that sort of thing. It... it hurts. Physically. I don't want to feel any more of that. I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I'm just trying to help you." He frowns hard. "I've been stressing about this for weeks. Please believe me."
She is the first human he's ever tried to speak to like this, and he could be in a lot of trouble if she does not believe him, if his attempts to warn her somehow reach his superiors. He'd never be allowed to work directly with humans again. He might even be killed, broken down so the magic that powers his life could be used elsewhere.
Even with all of his socialization training, and all of his experience pretending to be a human, he is still a fairy, and he cannot reliably predict the reactions of humans. They find him harmlessly eccentric, he finds them just as mystifying. He stares at this one now, waiting for an answer.
It's past midnight before Solana gets back to her dorm room. Arne is up waiting for her, and she instantly falls into his arms, stone-faced though part of her wants to burst into tears.
"Sola, are you okay? I was worried when you didn't answer my calls... I tried to look for you, but the offices were all closed up, and I didn't know where you'd gone..."
"I was with Professor MacDougal," she admits. "I need to abandon the Kriss project... or the military is going to dissect Lydia or something."
Arne doesn't know what to say. "What in the world?" are the words that fall out of his dumbfounded mouth.
Solana pulls back from their embrace, but grasps his hands tightly. "It's okay. It's going to be okay. I just can't publish all of my work. That's all. Maybe someday."
She kisses him, in an attempt to silence further questions, but the flood of questions still come.
It is a week of dense snow that doesn't want to let up.
Lydia, Solana and Arne bring Kriss to Llama Beach, the last place Kriss was seen alive.
"Well this is dreary," Lydia sighs. "Do you remember anything, Kriss?"
"It looks different in the snow," Kriss says.
Arne and Solana can see the spirit, now, without the aid of mad science or anything. Lydia's aura has just become that strong, that Kriss can show herself to ordinary sims...
...not that they react well.
Solana is worried that a ghost sighting could summon spooks of a different variety, and Kriss can see she is frightening her new friends. It's far past time to go.
Solana has the neurotic trait now, having expanded her horizons with much nerdiness, and she stares out at the icy water with dread as she imagines how Kriss must have died. Kriss, meanwhile, reminisces with Arne about parties, both ones she went to when she was alive, and ones she's attended with Lydia.
Lydia lowers her voice, whispering to Solana, "What if Kriss was murdered?"
Solana shakes her head. She does not lower her own voice, intending to be overheard, "I've done more digging. Blue with a pinkish outline indicates... death by shark."
MacDougal was the one who mentioned this to her. He had photo after photo of ghosts much like Kriss, mostly from an island civilization in the tropics. All of the victims had, allegedly, died by shark.
"She could have been pushed into a shark tank," Lydia says, earning herself nothing but a blank stare from the three others.
"I shouldn't have been out there in deep water so far from everyone else, in the dark," Kriss says, as she floats towards the shoreline. The others follow her quietly. "I just... didn't have friends of my own yet. Everybody else seemed to have their groups already, and I didn't fit in. I was there but nobody noticed me. Well... except Martin, I guess. He was really cute back then. I was just too nervous to tell him so."
"I'm sorry you can't go say hi," Lydia whines.
"It's okay," Kriss replies. "You guys cared about me, and wanted to help me... you were my friends, and you probably won't forget me, ha ha. But... Lydia, you should really get that aura of yours under control. Before other things find you."
The hug Kriss gives Lydia is bone-chillingly cold...
...and then, she's just gone.
Lydia was expecting her to walk into the water or something dramatic like that, but she's just gone.
Arne turns away from the cold waters quickly. "We should get back to campus..."
They spend that night playing video games, because none of them can get to sleep.
Despite all the effort spent on ghost research that will go unrecognized, Solana comes up with an impressive senior thesis about cyborg fish and passes her exams with flying colors.
She and Arne are ecstatic to finally have enough credits to graduate.
Sadly, Lydia has done too much screwing around to join them on graduation day.
She'll be staying at Sims-U for another term.
"Are you sure you'll be okay here on your own?" Solana asks.
"Yeah," Lydia lies. "Give Laurel and Dad a big hug for me."
"I hardly know what to say. Stay safe? Be good?"
"It's fine, Lana. Go back to Aurora Skies and get the dream job you've been dying to get."
But Lydia was not fine. She felt like a failure. She felt alone. She was only a few credits behind the geniuses; her academic advisor said she was doing well and on track, and she'd definitely graduate next term, but Lydia was inconsolable. The advisor even went so far as to recommend therapy, so Lydia would stop comparing herself to Solana.
Lydia doesn't want to go to therapy. She decides the next best thing is online dating.
She already has 8 matches, and 7 unsolicited nude photos.
The eighth guy is Jerry Wheeler here. He's sweet, and polite, and seems level headed, at first. They go on a few dates Lydia barely remembers because she's chugging so many elixirs she barely knows what end is up. Elixirs for confidence, elixirs to prevent the fun motive from decaying while she studies, elixirs to prevent her from getting tired...
Jerry and Lydia spend one of those dates ice skating on the pond between the library and the sports stadium. The lighting is just right, it's so romantic, and it's all the more magical because either Jerry isn't wearing skates or Lydia ate too many herbs at that last party.
Every night is a party... a loud and hazy blur of insignificant memories.
Burning herbs, spiced up pizza, juice, loud music, fights, sims streaking, sims tagging walls.
This is the party where Lydia and Jerry get up to some frisky things...
...in a sorority house bathroom.
Lydia and Jerry end up spending a lot of time together back at Lydia's dorm...
...but she breaks up with him when she realizes he's a technophobe nutcase, responsible for compulsively disabling or destroying every computer and television he sees.
Oh well. When human connection is beyond your ability, you can always dedicate your life to crows.
Hell yeah, we're going places with this crow.
Full disclosure, Lydia turned EVERYONE at this party into tragic clowns for mocking her crow.
Starting with THIS GUY.
I thought screenshots of the "Origin of the Tragic Clown" elixirs being used would be better than they turned out, but they were largely a disappointment. Sims stopped to "capture the moment", then cried a little, then fled.
Lydia graduates at the end of the term. As much as she has not enjoyed her experiences here, packing up to leave the dorm room feels surreal. This place was once new and scary, but since then it has become her life, her normal.
The sun has already set when she leaves to catch a bus out of here.
It's eerily quiet, for such a meaningful moment.
The trees are green by the time Lydia makes it all the way up north to Aurora Skies. Her home looks, from the outside, exactly how she left it. It's a sight that comforts her immediately.
That sense of comfort fades when she takes stock of the situation inside the house.
Her father hugged her, asked her how things went, and made dinner for her. But the house is much quieter, much emptier... and when Lydia asks about her sisters, she's told Laurel moved to Bridgeport to play for the sportsball team there, and Solana and Arne have their own place now.
Aunt Ivy and Uncle Mikkel are dead. Cousin Lily has a daughter named Zinnia. Astral has a new boyfriend.
Lydia thought she'd come home and everything would be normal again, but the news about Laurel hits her hard. Nothing will be normal again.
"Well what have you been up to, Dad? You've given me an update on everyone else."
"Mm? I've been working. You can see everything the company has been up to in our press releases."
"Was it weird for you, with all of your daughters gone?"
"I got used to it. I've kind of enjoyed the silence," he says, with a half-joking smile at her.
Lydia was not prepared for this level of honesty.
She's silent for the rest of the meal.
The next morning, Lydia makes her way to Solana's place.
With piles of scrap littering up the lawn and whimsically confusing architectural choices, it has to be seen to be believed...
It's close to the science center, where Arne and Solana both work now.
Likely a factor in why they chose to build here.
Solana greets her with a big hug. "You're back!" she squeals. "How did everything go? Did you get your degree?"
"Here it is," Lydia waves her diploma around for a moment, not seeming terribly excited about it.
"That's great!" Solana enthuses. "Have you decided what's next for you?"
"Not... really. How about you? What's with this... this... house?"
"I wanted something off the mains. Arne and I put our heads together to build a home that would be almost completely self-sustaining. It has its own water supply and generates its own power. We also grow our own vegetables."
"Wow..."
"It's extremely efficient! Unfortunately there are some features that would put the typical home-buyer off, so... well... while none of this is exactly revolutionary, it's just not a thing that ever caught on. Which is a shame, because this place is so much more eco-friendly than—"
Blah, blah, blah. As long as Lydia has known him, Arne has had the eco-friendly trait. She's not surprised Solana has adopted some of his views just like he's adopted some of hers.
"We didn't build it entirely from scratch," Solana is still talking somehow. "There was an old structure here, but it was fire damaged and, well, you can barely recognize it anymore."
Lydia nods, trying to give the impression she was listening the whole time. "Yeah, I remember it. I used to come down this street a lot." This is the street Druidsdream is on.
"Right. Of course. Come inside! I'll show you around."
The front door — or what Lydia assumes is the front door — leads into a kitchen.
A dark, spooky, kitchen.
"Don't look at the leaky sink, I was just in the middle of fixing that," Solana laughs. It doesn't even have the decency to be a nervous laugh. It's just a breezy laugh, as if nothing's odd here.
Steam rises from the grates on the floor. Lydia jumps.
Then there's the bathroom.
A confusing mess of noisy contraptions.
Apparently laundry gets done in here too.
Then there's work areas.
"How does a neat sim live like this?" Lydia blurts.
Solana tries not to be offended. "I know where everything is," she says.
They have a nectar cellar.
"Arne likes his booze," Solana says. "In moderation, of course."
"Where is he?" Lydia keeps expecting to find him tucked away in one of these rooms, tinkering away at something, but he has yet to materialize.
"He's at work. Dad told you he works at the observatory, right? He's an astronomer."
"Right." Lydia realizes she never spared a single thought as to why Arne was going to college, how he acquired his scholarships to be there or what he wanted to do with his life.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing? You guys are just, like, cartoon geniuses, you know? You don't just pick one field to obsess in. You do everything. You do everything and you do it to extremes."
Solana frowns. "That's... a compliment, right?"
"Yes yes it's a compliment," Lydia reassures her.
"Well THIS is what I'm most excited to show you." Solana steps into a sort of greenhouse room and gestures grandly. There are plants everywhere, as well as a bunch of Lydia's potions... and on a display set up just like the ones at Druidsdream, there is Ruth & Leon Zhong's book.
"These... are mostly alchemy ingredients," Lydia realizes. "You want to keep studying me."
Solana is a scientist, and with her credentials she could have gone anywhere, but she chose to return to Aurora Skies, because this is home, and while she may be employed at the town's science center her true interests are supernatural in nature and thus pursued off the clock.
"I was worried you would have more problems," Solana admits. "With ghosts showing up."
Lydia shakes her head. "Not yet. I have a crow though..."
Solana continues the tour, winding them through the house until they end up in the kitchen again, where they started.
"This place is a maze," Lydia says. "I can tell you really love it, though."
"I'm just happy you're back and everything's okay. I was really worried about you, and that mysterious aura of yours."
Instead of responding, Lydia grabs her midsection and looks distressed.
Solana frowns. "What? What is it?"
"Nausea," Lydia whines. "I haven't told Dad, but I think... I think I may be pregnant."
Solana stares at her. "What? How? With who?"
"I don't think I need to tell you how," Lydia grumbles. "There was... this guy... I dated for a little bit, after you left. He was really jacked and... nice and all... but kind of nuts... I don't know. It's all kind of a blur, Lana. What do I do now?"
Solana is quiet for a moment, weighing her response carefully. She doesn't want to upset Lydia. "I don't think Dad would appreciate sharing a house with a toddler. He's almost an elder."
Lydia whimpers. "I don't think he even missed me..."
"What? Of course he missed you. He was freaked out when I came home without you."
"Oh..."
"Listen, it's not fixed up nice yet, but we're building more bedrooms in the basement below ours. Arne and I want to be parents someday too. But there's plenty of room for you. You should stay with us. You can even... pick whatever decor you like?" Solana suspects Lydia is not thrilled with the steampunk look.
Lydia lowers her head. "Are you sure you want me here?"
"Yes! And I know Arne won't mind."
It's true, Arne won't mind. He has the family oriented trait, a loyalty likely instilled by his doting parents and his father's close relationships with various cousins and such. The Oss clan has always been close-knit and friendly.
The house whirs, clicks and clacks. Lydia does not find sleep easy that night.
______________________________________________________
Etc.: Wow who wrote this trash.
Well. If you've read my past random legacies, you'll remember fairy secret agents pop up... sometimes.
In my other legacies I also had multiple generations of magical beings (witches, werewolves, etc) and I hoped to keep this one more hum-drum and not get sucked into that stuff since I'd already established magical culture in this universe as fraught with complications.
And then, I rolled both ghost hunter and alchemist for this generation. Sigh!
I hate this chapter, but it was written out months and months ago so... scrapping it in favor of coming up with a whole new story seemed like it'd be way too much work.
THE NEW HOUSE THOUGH. Can we talk about that? Didn't I tell you it would be awesome? A day late and several dollars overboard, but AWESOME? I added some extra touches to personalize it for this legacy family, but 99.9% of it is Crowkeeper's work, and you can get it right here.
Fully furnished, it comes at a hefty price tag of about 380k. Lydia and Solana moved out of their childhood home without Lynx, so I had to have that 380k as liquid funds, since the value of the prior house stayed with their father. (I could have worked around this by bringing Lynx too and then booting him, but where's the fun in that?)
This lot has a ton of interesting features. The one issue is it's not really suitable for a big family (there's only one bedroom), so I had to expand underground (dammit I always do this). There was no way I could convincingly build onto the structure anywhere else, because my skill level is significantly lower than Crowkeeper's.
Solana's university degree allowed her to start at level 4 in the science career track. Arne's technically did nothing for him, either because (A) the astronomer career was added after the University Life expansion and the devs just didn't think about it, or (B) the astronomer career is usually locked to being in ThE FuTuRe, so they thought it'd be weird for a UL degree to prep your sim for it? I just plopped a rabbithole rug down for that career at the science/medical center.
Will Lydia's communications degree help her at all? That would be a spoiler.
