The first week in their new residence rushes by, Venice working hard at her new 'rent-a-fan' job in the music industry. Lilli working hard to be a homemaker, cleaning things, fixing things, cooking things, fixing things, looking after the sprouts, (both the biological, and the organic.). And fixing things. All though fixing things usually means giving up after the first few hours and calling a qualified repair person. The two young adults spend their most of their spare time with Marcus, teaching him to use a potty, to walk, and to talk, and watching him play.
Lilliana wakes early, resigned to the fact to the fact that she was not 'living the dream'. Now, that concept actually cheers her up, instead if depressing her. For as long as Lil could remember, her mother had lived her life for her. Lilli had always resented that she had felt like she had no control over her destiny, her dreams.
Lil's mother had controlled every aspect of her life as a child, from what dresses were to be born, to where she sat at mealtimes. Lilli's brothers and sisters continuously, graciously, subserviently, bowed and scraped at their mothers feet, in an attempt to placate and please their mother. This had always grated against Lil's soul.
'I don't miss any of them, and they sure don't miss me' Lil ruminated, with only a tinge of bitterness. 'It's one less competitor for the throne for all of them, and a chance to dream my own dream for me.". Lilliana slid quietly out of bed, pulling the covers back up gently around her lover, and tip toed silently over to Marcus' crib. Marcus was sleeping peacefully, with his arm wrapped around the fairy teddy bear she had bought for him when he had entered the world.
She slipped off her underwear, opened the shower door, tucked her wings in tight against herself, and stepped in. She hesitantly twisted the taps, and as nothing unexpected happened, breathed a sigh of relief. She reached for the sliding door, and as she closed it jammed, and tilted over slightly.
'Icebergs Ahead, Icebergs Ahead!', her internal voice shouted at her, as an almost painfully cold sensation slapped her backside and wings. She took a step away from the cold corner that she'd pressed herself back into when the door threatened to dislodge and drop onto her foot. Gingerly, she coaxed the door closed.
"I do not much like you, just so you know.", she told the shower quietly in a stern tone, a perfect imitation of her mothers voice, if not phraseology. The shower responded shortly after by running out of hot water.
Lilliana, now dried and dressed, raids the fridge. The slowly dwindling contents do not inspire her.
Her recently laid garden bed wasn't ready to deliver her any treasures. 'I wish I had learned bloom magic' she had thought to herself. Lilliana had asked her mother to teach her once, and was told ' A princess does not garden my dear, a servant gardens!'.
Lilli responded to that memory by poking her tongue out at it. 'If the cupboards are empty, it is now my responsibility to fill them I guess', Lilli thought, and went out to find fruit, and seeds, and any other shiny thing that the town had to offer to her. Venice and Marcus, wake up shortly after, and go through the morning training and feeding rituals.
Lilliana finds time to make some Autumn Salad for herself, Mac N Cheese for Venice, and Spaghetti for Marcus. The leftover meals take up more space in the fridge than the fresh supplies, which worries Lil.
Money is tight, and other than overnight or weekend stays in the fanciest hotels while chasing gigs, Lilliana had never really been away from home, or servants for long. This only further encouraged her to work harder at getting it right for her lover and her lovers sprout.
One of the rental fans that Venice works with gives her an almost new toy box for Marcus, telling her 'I got it on sale for my sister, but she had a girl, so I bought her a pink one instead. Marcus regularly uses it to hoist himself to his feet, while learning to walk. A skill he pick up rapidly.
'Not as tasty as the one at the library,' Marcus tells Lillibear, who turns her head in disgust, 'But not bad, not bad at all!'
'Awesome!', thinks Marcus, 'I think I'll call this new style of music I just invented.. Bop and Drool!'
Lillibear still being antisocial, ignores him.
Venice only has one day off in the first week, and they decide it is a day for 'Us Time'. The couple spend most of the day together at home with Marcus, and finally at the end of the day, the lovers get some true 'Is Time'!
Marcus is mostly wobbling around the house on his feet, by the end of the week, although, occasionally he will drop and 'bum shuffle' to get closer to things. One day Venice returns upstairs from the basement bedroom to discover Marcus has vanished. She quickly glances at the pool, both gates are closed.
Venice races to the bathroom, the door is closed, he might have shut himself in, she gently opens the door in case he is behind it, but he is not there. Panic starts to swell, and she steps toward the front door to see if her son is in the garden with Lil. A bump, bump, bump noise, and a familiar giggle draws her attention to the toy box. Venice watches from the doorway, and breaths a long sigh of relief as her son emerges from the pirate themed box.
'Vroom, Vroom' thinks to himself.
'Mum? Mum? Where did you go?'
Marcus grows, he has learned to walk, rarely soils his diaper and is beginning to talk, although only he, and Lillibear understands what he is saying. Gypsy just nods her head wisely, as if she understands whenever Marcus gives her lectures in the secret workings of the inner universes.
Venice works hard at her job, learning guitar and hanging out with more experienced musicians, her opportunity for advancement grows daily, 'It's a shame I have to work Saturdays though.' She thinks unenthusiasticly.
Lilliana's garden also grows, while her garden is slowly maturing, she supplements the fridge with 'free' harvest from several sources, including the Elba Community Garden. To keep her karma balanced she decides that when they have excess, she will transfer that back into the public garden rather than profit from it.
On Friday, Marcus wakes up to find the grown ups gone. Rather than wail to be released, he decides to entertain himself and Lillibear until 'Mum' or 'Illi' come to get him
'So, two werewolf Scary Bears walk into a bar... You'd think the second one would have been smart enough to duck!' Marcus chortles. Lillibear doesn't get the joke.
Marcus 'bum shuffles' from behind Gypsy's bed, where he had been regaling her with tales of his grand adventures, and leaning against Mum's legs, stands up, poking his head under her skirt in the process. "Excuse me, young man!" Venice admonishes. "I carried you from inception to term.", she smiles. "There is no going back now, especially as big as you've become. No refunds and no returns is the policy!", she laughs as she picks him up for a snuggle before putting him in the highchair.
"Stedy!", Marcus howls enthusiastically, "Stedy!!" as Venice slops one of Lilliana's spaghetti meals into the food processor. 'Spah-GEH-tee', Venice pronounces phonetically to her son. Marcus scowls as his mother delays in the delivery of the all time, bestest, tasting thing in the world ever. "SGEDY-SGEDY-SGEDEEEEEE" Marcus wails hopefully.
[ Insert picture here. The one that looks like an explosion at a spaghetti sauce factory.]
Meanwhile, Gypsy has been out treasure hunting, initially hiding her horded loot under her bed.
Now her hoard has grown so large that she can't hide it, and attempts to sit on the overflow, like a dragon guarding a gold pile. It's not working for her.
Lilliana, being a keen collector herself understands the obsession, and begins cleaning up the collection of random junk. Gypsy, understanding her position in the pack, lets Lilliana take the things. Gypsy is pleasantly surprised when the fairy cooes and pats her for some of the items, especially the shiny rocks. 'Strange girl that one,but still...' Gypsy thinks to her self.
Liliana pockets the gems, metals, and other valuables, and gathers up the random collection of chip packets, leaves, feathers and discarded snake skins, to take outside and deposit into the rubbish bin.
Lilli opens the front door to find a very large wooden crate sitting between the front door and the rubbish bin. Lil, empties the worthless junk into, the bin, and takes the opportunity to collect the mail, before returning inside. "What did you buy V?" asks Lil full of curiosity.
Venice looks at Lil with a look of confusion. "What? I haven't spent a simoleon, we need the cash to expand and renovate!. What ARE you talking about, Lil?". Venice states. Lil, flicking through bills starts "The big wooden crate outside, didn't you order..." She trails off, as she sees her name on the last envelope. Her name, 'Lilliana Camilla Jasmine Primrose Poppy Rosebloom' is painstaking hand written in an incredibly ornate style across the length of the envelope. Furthermore, it is written in a language, that likely nobody else in Elba would be able to read. That and a lack of postage stamps clearly indicate hand delivery.
The crate is too large to fit through the door, so they uncrate it. The contents are too large to fit through the door. Lilliana finds some tools and takes the front door off its hinges, and with much pushing and shoving said object arrives inside, along with dozens of new scratches. The many new scratches are mostly obscured and insignificant compared to the pre-existing scratches and gouges.
Vienna has notices that Lilli hasn't used any sentences with more than four words since the dismantling of the crate began. While Venice isn't well versed in the ways of the supernatural, even she realizes this does not bode well!
Lilliana drops the bills on the table, and gently opens her personal letter, the method of opening indicates an expectation of venomous snakes, small explosions, or some minor catastrophic event, thinks Venice. Venice tears into the bills, including a hefty bill for the delivery of the long distance crate.
'Fantastic! Goodbye savings' Venice groans internally, as the total of current bills almost reaches the total of savings. Venice, however keeps this to her self for the moment. As she has been going through the bills, she has been glancing at Lil, to gauge her reactions to the personal letter.
The expressions on Lil's face run through the full ranges of distaste and disgust, with the occasional twist of anger, as she lifted her eyes from the letter, and glared at the newly arrived object. Eventually Lilli slammed the letter onto the table. "Arrogant, arrogant prick!", The fairy explodes, in the second time for, well, in forever. "Like the Royal Consort has ANY idea of what real life is like!"
The outburst quickly confirmed suspicions for Venice. The only thing that really upset her Lilli, was family. Her old family. Reaching to console her partner, Venice grasped at the first thing to mind, "I thought you got on okay with your step-father", Venice asked Lilli gently.
"The Royal Consort", Lilliana clarified, "was not in any way a father to me!" Almost on the verge of tears, she buckled up the courage to continue. "In public, he was cold and indifferent. In private he was barely any warmer!", "For some bizarre reason, he was madly in love with my mother. He didn't want her money, or the title, and he certainly didn't want her twenty-one children!.", "He was never likeable, he just wasn't ...",Lil fished for the right words, "A conniving, hateful, backstabbing viper, like everyone else I was related to!", she fumed.
"So what's with the strange looking box?" Venice attempted to steer the conversation away from Lil's family, without trying to obviously change the subject.
Lil brandished the letter. "My mother, the very same one that disowned and disinherited me for being me, told one of her royal advisors, 'My only regret in disowning my worthless seventeenth child, is that one day someone will discover her living in filth like a serf, and attempt to use that to smudge our good name!".
"So he packed up one of the older cleaning servants and had it secretly shipped off to us in the dismal swamp lands, in the hopes of preventing any smudging or besmirching! Curse them all!"
Venice carefully thought about her lover's current mood, she knew Lilli would stew and sulk all night, if she could not get her mind away from the royal family. "I dunno Lil." Venice said, carefully choosing her words. "I have been thinking about hiring a maid to look after the housework, so you could spend more time with Marcus, and more time in the garden, while I'm at work."
"That would also mean I have more time with you and Marcus, when I'm not at work, as well.." Venice carefully gauged the rate of emotional recovery her friend was making, and decided it best to keep going quickly. "Don't let those asshats get you down Lil. They are not your family anymore anyway. Now its Marcus, Dumb Dog, You and I, we are a family now Lilli!"
Lilliana smiled and turned to where Gypsy was napping, "She acts sooo mean, but she really does love you too!", Lilli theatrically whispered at Gypsy, who was dreaming of dinosaur bones, and hadn't heard a word. Lil turned back to Venice, she was almost smiling. Venice charged into the fray, "I think the dumbass royal consort has actually done us a favor, we don't have to spring for a maid now, so... I have never seen one of these, Lil, how does it work exactly"?
Venice had carefully guided her lover through the maelstrom of negative emotions that always surrounded thoughts of her former royal family. Lilli, now almost her bubbly, usual self, showed Venice the summoning bell, and explained how some servants developed odd little quirks with time.
"Especially with the older ones, you have to dismiss them as soon as they are done", Lilli explained.
"We had this one old antique, 'Bonehilda', the daft old thing used to hit the bar and empty the liquor cabinet when she had finished her duties", Lilli laughed. Venice waved the bell in the air, pointing at the unusual box. Venice could not decide if it looked like an ornate upright coffin, of a strangely decorated outhouse toilet, like the ones she had seen pictures of from Simstralia.
"Boney..Poop!", Marcus informed the extremely skinny cleaning lady, after going potty all by himself!
Venice and Lilly snuggle closely when Venice comes home from work late Saturday night, neither of them has the energy to slide under the covers like they had planned earlier that day. Instead they discuss their financial situation, how to improve it. They cover topics such as as how the house should be expanded, and the preferred order of renovations. Both drift off into a warm and comfortable sleep, and both dream of dreams coming true.
Firstly, I finally finagled to a small equestrian center onto the map, in case of an equestrian roll.
With only two expansions, I have disabled non-compatible careers from the roller, I have played and enjoyed Equestrians before, although without much financial success.
Secondly, while messing around with lots, I realized my house is on a 40x40 lot, not a 20x20. Not my fault, I blame the agent. Rather than ignore this, I will calculate the difference and (hopefully repay the difference before the 31'st game day) after receiving an imaginary letter from the estate agents.
Failure to comply with add a 5% (of total lot cost difference) per day, to the outstanding amount.
Lol, I never was any good at handling money, RL or virtual!
Thirdly, I always have auto lights enabled. However, whenever Marcus woke up he would have the 'Dark in here' moodlet, which remained until V or Lil woke up and moved around the room, turning on the auto-lights. Even placing a roof light directly above the crib didn't fix this, so I placed a small wall mounted light above the crib to solve the problem. I just need to remember to go back and reset this one after adding any more lights.
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