Discworld LegacyChapter

17.1

By the Pricking

of My Thumbs...

Welcome back to the Discworld Legacy.

Last time:- Dorfl and Roxanne got married;- Casanunda and Amber got old;- Esmerelda and Edward were born and aged to child and toddler respectively;- And I promised plot which failed to materialise because I ran out of space, the same won't happen this time.

By the way, the sim in the lower right corner is my newest self-sim who will be making an appearance soon.

Now over to Dorfl who'll guide us through recent events at the legacy home.

"Come in and sit down, I'll start where I left off.""You seem worried Dorfl, is there something wrong?"

"Yes...No...I don't know. It's Esme, ever since she became a teenager she's been different."

"Puberty can be a difficult time, a lot of sims start acting differently."

"I know, but I'm worried that it's something more than that. Look, I'll just start from the beginning, maybe it'll be clearer that way."

Last time we spoke it was shortly after Edward's birthday. It didn't take him long to display how different he was from Esme. She had spent most of her toddler years demanding attention from anyone who came in the door, Edward welcomed affection from family members he knew, was nervous of strangers and never went looking for attention.

He seemed happiest when playing by himself; except for the time he spent with Esme.

Despite their obvious differences and strong bond quickly formed between the two. Esme was very loving towards her little brother, she loved playing with him and telling him all about what she'd learnt at school that day,

and he seemed to reserve his brightest smiles for her.

The bond between Esme and Edward was very helpful as he was still a toddler when Roxy next gave birth and we were slightly concerned he would feel neglected.

Especially as this pregnancy resulted in not one but two new additions to the family.

First born was Errol, a little boy with my skin and Roxy's eyes and hair. Following closely behind her brother was Evadne, who has the same black eyes as Edward and her mother's skin and hair.

It was shortly after the birth of Errol and Evadne that I first became worried about Esmerelda.

As I've said before Esme has always been curious and determined to investigate everything. As a child the first thing she wanted to know was why her and my skin was so different to everyone else’s. She was bright enough to realise that it must have been something to do with dad and asked him endless questions about it.

Eventually she wore him down and he told her the (heavily edited) story of his abductions and the birth of Druellae, Detritus and myself.

From there she read endlessly, scouring the library and the internet for any mentions of alien abductions.

She eventually discovered that I had once been a Space Pirate (I had been keeping that fact from her, perhaps selfishly, so as to avoid the endless questions it would bring)

and, as I had feared, pestered me until I told her what I had learnt of our ancestry.

I had hoped that by answering her questions Esme would have the answers she was looking for and so stop the endless research. It's not that I don't approve of her quest for knowledge, it's just that she was getting a bit obsessed, she spent all her free time on the computer or down at the library never playing or interacting with anyone outside the household and that's not healthy.

Fortunately just as I was getting ready to do something drastic, like banning her from the library (what normal parent has to consider doing that?), something happened to distract her from her research.

It was Edward's birthday.

And the twins.

Esme barely gave him a chance to sort his hair out before pulling him into a tight hug.

Edward being a carefree child, only interested in playing, helped Esme to remember that she was still just a kid herself and had plenty of time to study later.

The sight of the two of them playing together was reassuring and I soon put aside any worries I had about Esme's obsession thinking it was in the past, I wish I'd been right.

The news that Roxy was again pregnant also served as a distraction as we started planning nursery expansions and bedroom redecoration for when Errol and Evadne became children.

Speaking of which, the twins had become lively toddlers at the same time Edward had become a child. In some ways they were very much alike, both bundles of energy that spent most of their time awake giggling at the slightest thing. In other ways they were very different - Errol loved attention of any kind and would happily smile at any stranger whereas Evadne was more demanding and picky.

Whatever their differences they were the closest of friends right from the word go. They make me think that perhaps there's something to all the reports or twins having a special link, they were certainly closer than I was to any of my siblings, even Dios who was almost the same age.

As Esme's teen birthday approached she fell back into old habits, although it wasn't just aliens she was interested in anymore. Her eyes had been opened to the supernatural world and she began to investigate it more fully. She started with vampires, then moved to zombies, plantsims and finally werewolves.

By her birthday she had almost exhausted avenues to investigate. It looked like this obsession had come to an end, we just hoped that her next fixation would be something simpler, like boys, which, at least, are covered in the parenting manuals, the supernatural rarely got a mention.

At first signs were good, Esme and Edward's friendship initially seemed to remain strong despite the new age gap.

But as time went on she became engrossed in her research leaving Edward waiting for hours to play with his big sister.

From what little I know it seems she had uncovered a new kind of supernatural creature, one that very little was known about and she was determined to learn everything she could about it.

After Errol and Evadne became children they did their best to include Edward in their games

but all too often he found himself on the outside looking in. It wasn't the twins fault, Edward could never be as close to them as they were to each other and he didn't want to be, he just wanted to spend time with his Esme.

More and more I found him playing alone, I did my best to support him but a parent is no replacement for a best friend.

It didn't help that Roxy and I were again busy with two new additions to the household and we couldn't pay as much attention to the older children as perhaps we should have.

Our second set of twins were Eric and Eskarina, both with identical colouring to Roxy.

Esme also started spending her nights stargazing, hoping to personally meet the aliens she had heard so much about.

After nights of searching Esme's patience was rewarded.

For all I hoped that each new discovery would finally satisfy Esme by now I knew enough about my daughter that my hope was in vain.

And sure enough after her alien abduction she started going on trips downtown, she always had an excuse – she needed new clothes, a phone, we were nearly out of groceries,

but she always took far longer than the errand needed

and anytime we asked she’d always say she’d run into friends and lost track of time.

Now she's started locking us out of her room and we hardly ever see her anymore.

"So what do you think, could it just be teenage hormones?"

"I'm not sure, I do understand why you're worried, if she's got caught up in something..."

"I tell you what, I'll look into it, talk to some of my contacts, see what I can dig up. I'll pop by in a couple of days, tell you what I've found out."

"Thank you. I feel better just telling someone, in fact I'm sure that it'll all be sorted out by the time you return, don't take too much time looking into it, I don't want you to waste your effort on nothing."

That's about it for this chapter, all that's left is the stats and some random pictures.

Esmerelda rolled knowledge with the life time want to become a Cult Leader, very appropriate give where this story is taking her.

No new stats for Edward, just a picture to show you his face properly. The more I play this sim the more I like him and the more guilty I feel for all the miserable photo shoots I do with him.

Errol is named after a swamp dragon (small dragons that evolved in swamps and have a tendency to explode). Errol was a freak by swamp dragon standards, his wings were about the same size as his abnormally large eyebrows, with a face like an anteater, a pear-shaped body and gigantic nostrils. He couldn't flame or fly, and spent most of his time relaxing. But when a Noble dragon attacked Ankh-Morpork he managed to flame backwards and defeat it, proof that he was a throwback to the ancient space-faring dragons.

Evadne is named after Mrs Evadne Cake - medium, templar nightmare and landlady for the undead. Widow with one daughter, Ludmilla. She is small, circular, and has a large hat and handbag. She is deeply religious, although she doesn't accept priestesses and eventually breaks up with every church on the grounds of her daughter's difference. She also has strong precognition which can be troublesome in conversation.

The twins actually grew up at the same time as Esme.

Eric is named after a 13 year old demonologist, Eric Thursley, who wants the mastery of all kingdoms, to meet the most beautiful woman who ever existed, and to live forever. He attempts to summon a demon to grant his desires and instead gets Rincewind, an incompetent wizard who manages to mess up each wish and ends up sending the pair into hell and getting mixed up in a demon rebellion.

Eskarina is named after Eskarina Smith, a young girl born in the smithy of the village of Bad Ass, eighth child of an eighth son. She inherited the magical powers and staff of Drum Billet, a wizard from Unseen University, and was a pupil of Granny Weatherwax, until it became clear that she had Wizards' magic, not Witches' magic. Eskarina was the first and - as far as is known - only female student ever accepted or at least allowed to enter Unseen University (after a major battle to do so).

This is just a sequence I found especially amusing and thought I'd include as there has been a definite lack of Casanunda and Amber this update.

Poor Dibbler, even his mother thinks he's lost it.

Does anyone else think that these reactions to Esme's abduction are the wrong way round? Surely Dorfl, as a knowledge sim, should be happy for his daughter and Roxy, the family sim, should be worried.

That's the end of the first part of this chapter, part two should be up within a week, all the pictures are taken, I just need to write it.