"Oh no!" Casey gasped "I'm still a virgin, we don't even sleep in the same bunk when I stay over!", Casey rushed, relieved to finally be free of her secret. "In fact, we didn't even have our first kiss, until Marcus proposed after the school dance!"
"Oh!" stuttered Venice, who had secretly suspected her son and soon to be daughter in law had been shagging like bunny rabbits, considering how often Casey stayed over. Venice had given Marcus the birds and bees lecture, as well as the safe sex lecture, and all the other related lectures at an early age.
After all, she was already pregnant at Marcus age.
"So why the big secret, keeping it from your mother and I?" asked Venice, to keep the conversation moving. "Well..", hesitated Casey, "When Marcus asked me, I wanted to elope, and start a life where nobody knew us, and he talked me into staying and finishing school.".
"But why would you want to disappear?", Venice pushed, knowing there was something more. "Because I hate my life, I hate everything about it, everything about it, except Marcus!", Casey cried.
"I love my mum, but she is always too busy dealing with my crazy sisters, and her loser husband to have time for me, school is a nightmare, and then there is the werewolf thing!"
"When I am with Marcus, he makes all my pain and anger go away!" Casey said, pushing the uneaten cake slice away. "He makes me even feel good about my self sometimes."
Venice hugged the quietly sobbing teenager, "But why the secrecy? It's not like Marcus to hide something like this from Lilli or I?", she probed gently.
"It's my fault!", sobbed Casey, "After Marcus convinced me to stay, I felt so ashamed I didn't want anyone to know what I'd been thinking, and to keep everything a secret until we both finished school."
Casey's sisters continued to be insufferable at school, and at home, the only time she could bare to be around them was in wolf form when hunting, despite her sisters starting several fights over who was pack leader. These arguments continued until Alycia and Bernadette announced they where joining the Wulf family pack for hunting.
Casey decided she would rather hunt solo. Her sisters where not impressed.
Venice, Lilli, and Serena spoke several times about Casey's unhappiness at home, and in the end agreed to Casey moving into the Jettstar household, after all, Casey was highly likely to move out of home immediately after finishing school, and with her impending marriage, would be living there or in a new house shortly anyway. While Serena wasn't excited about her first cub leaving the nest, she admitted at least Casey was going to a good home, where she would be happy.
Venice had Bob the builder, add another room to the upstairs area. Casey bounced on her new bed. The excitement of finishing school, leaving home, getting married, was overwhelming. She didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry!
"Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been. David Bowie.” argued Venice. "Well, the person I should be can wait a few days, I'm not having a party on my birthday." countered Marcus the day before aging up. "Casey has to share her birthday with her mental sisters the day after, so we are going to wait until the day after that and have a joint birthday party, and announce our wedding!", Marcus added.
Venice could see the point in sharing something special with the one you love, and so conceded defeat to her sons logic, despite having already planned a party for Marcus.
Marcus interrupted his workout, he had barely noticed 'that aging' feeling over the burn of the muscle fatigue. He stretched his arms, and kneaded his tired calf muscles, waiting to become a Young Adult.
Then suddenly, it happened. Marcus briefly checked his reflection in the window, he was quite solid and athletic looking, despite the fact that his only sports like activities other than jogging revolved around the treadmill and weights.
Marcus went from room to room looking for Casey to show her what her new man looked like, He thought he heard the sink running in the bathroom that separated their two rooms, he pushed the door open, expected her to be at the sink. "Oh maker, I'm so sorry Case!", he blurted, realizing she was in the shower. "Get OUT of here, you OLD pervert!", Casey cried, not sure if she was embarrassed or excited, that Marcus had seen her naked, well, the back half of her anyway.
Marcus quickly shut the door, "Hurry up, you'll be late for your last day of school, and I'm driving you!", he added "Kiddo!", and was rewarded by the sound of a wet cloth bouncing off the door.
Marcus drove Casey to school in his 69 Dodge Charger, and pulled up behind a police car. Casey pecked him on the cheek, grabbed her school books and jumped out of her fiances car, just as two police officers were escorting Casey sisters to the waiting patrol car. 'Maybe I won't have to share a party with them' Casey hoped.
Casey went to the Errant household after school, her mother gave her a book on fishing, which pleased her, and the she waited another hour for her sisters to be released, so the triplets could have their party. Her sisters were on the best behavior, as Serena was definitely not in a good mood with either of them for wolfing out and fighting in school. Casey kissed her mother and grudgingly her sisters as soon as the party was over, and went to her new home.
Venice bought her first ice cream since becoming a rock star, she had always been watching her figure, and working out like crazy to stay in shape while climbing her way to the top, and now that she was an international phenomenon, she was entitled to a treat!
She grabbed the chew toy that was on top of the pile, she didn't have the energy to dig through for her favorite.
Chapter Notes:
I was going to use the David Bowie quote for the chapter title. but decided it was too long.
I went with 'Aging', but the one word title irked me throughout writing the entire chapter, and I change it to 'The Art Of Aging' as I've had to spend so much time 'age fiddling' with the Jettstars and Errants to keep every ones ages at a story correct level. Despite having a mod that countered the games age gapping when you create twins and triplets etc in CAS. I'm still having issues, quite possibly SP or something else is causing it. Whatever it is, its not coming up as a conflict with any of the tools I have, so I'm not going to look into any further.
So.... Venice was 1 day of elder, and I didn't want her to age before Marcus and Casey, so I used a Alchemy young again potion, thinking it was the same as ambrosia...wrong, it made her a YA, so then I had to age her back up to Adult, then of course hunt through my massive hair collection, etc.
Casey was 7 days younger than Alycia, and 8 days younger than Bernadette.. So pokery jiggery there too. After spending 20K points stopping Gypsy from hitting Elder a few days ago, it was time to age her up, to keep up with Marcus. I had intended to write bulk about Marcus and Gypsy, but it all got cut to keep each chapter from becoming an encyclopedia sized read.
So technically, Marcus is now heir, and the game should be played by his rolls, but I'm going to drag out the takeover for a chapter, maybe two, until I feel I have finished this part of the story. Hopefully the reasoning is clear to both my regular readers :P
I've tried to play by the challenge rules so far, but I must confess to bending few especially with pets and supernatural life states. (Pets and SN are the only 2 EPs I have...)
I totally confess to absolutely smashing rules 7 & 8 to oblivion, purely for story telling purposes and cohesion, not for game advantage. I put all blame for my time travel anomalies squarely onto the 'Into The Future' expansion that I don't own yet, but is already reaching back in time to wreak havoc with my game.
