#sim: noelle helios

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"Ulyssa, what the hell is the matter with you? Can you even hear yourself? Noelle is right there! You've known she was your daughter? For how long? I can't imagine that you're paying child support, which means that Lucy has been shouldering the costs for your daughter alone. Why haven't you visited her? Is that why you won't let Roman see his daughter, because you don't believe in raising kids that are problematic for the marriage you keep destroying? You're making the wife you claim to love lie to her own people because you find monogamy difficult. How dare you treat a child like this! You're just as bad as Mom!"

Ulyssa rolled her eyes and shot their father a dirty look.

"Well, this little trap has worked out perfectly, hasn't it, Dad?" she spat. "Let's all gang up on Ulyssa. Isn't she horrible?"

Noelle watched the drama in the kitchen unfold, trying to distance herself from it in the hall. This couldn't be true. Noelle knew her mother and all her faults, but she had never guessed that Lucy could keep a secret like this from her.

For the first time in her life, Noelle thought she could see an outline of the woman Lucy Helios-Diablo actually was. She was mean and blunt and frequently treated her daughter like she was an exotic pet instead of a child, but she was also kind...in her own way. Noelle thought of the hours her mother had spent helping Theo with his various problems or when she announced a spontaneous dinner in Arkhelios to give Roman's restaurant business. Cutting her biological mother from Noelle's life had been one of Lucy's kind gestures, even if Noelle hadn't understood it until now. There was no universe where Ulyssa wanted Noelle. She'd practically spat that sentiment at Cindra just now. Noelle was a regret, a mistake that Ulyssa desperately wanted to undo. A reminder of her embarrassment that she could sink as low as to sleep with Lucy, the annoying friend of her little brother.

Noelle didn't even realize that she was crying until she felt Cindra's comforting hands around her. Noelle had never experienced such a gesture from the Durants, but then again, she hadn't known that they were her biological family until five minutes ago. Cindra was nice; at least she seemed that way. Noelle wasn't used to adults comforting her. Her mother encouraged her to make her own choices and mistakes, and her grandmother did the same. Grandma Elaine loved Saturnia and spoiled her, while Noelle and Theo were encouraged to keep their "drama" to themselves. Having the demon sovereign for a stepmother wasn't exactly maternal either. Once the sovereign had discovered that Noelle didn't possess the same potential as her cousin, she had largely ignored her stepdaughter. They were friendly, sure, and the sovereign really wasn't as bad as everyone assumed she was. Noelle was regaled with amazing stories of demonic battles and how life millennia ago was really much different than what her textbooks said, but the sovereign wasn't her mother.

"It's okay," Cindra whispered, still stroking Noelle's hair as she cried. "We know the truth now. You're my niece, and I'm going to help you. No Durant gets left behind, unless they choose to be. We stick together."

No one was her secondary mother and clearly Noelle had been foolish to think that her other biological donor was somewhere secretly hoping to meet her. She wasn't blind; she had stumbled upon her mother crying several times over the past years. Noelle's story wasn't some magical fairy tale where she got to go live in a castle with parents who loved her. Her story was of a distant mother who had been far too hurt in the past to open up to others, including her daughter.

And rejection. There wasn't another word strong enough to describe Noelle's life. She didn't have powers like Theo to keep people interested in her or a close enough resemblance to her grandmother for Elaine to bond with her. Keeping Ulyssa out of Noelle's life was the best way Lucy knew how to protect her daughter from the pain of rejection, but the secret was out now. What was she supposed to do now?

It was now the second time that a Helios and a Durant had covered up a pregnancy and Cindra was frankly getting sick of the drama. Ulyssa had vanished shortly after Noelle's tears could be heard, without even stopping to say goodbye to her daughter. Cindra never thought that her opinion of Ulyssa could get any lower after the affair with Roman, but here she was, fuming over this new betrayal.

And Jorah. Her brother was speaking in hushed tones with their father, clearly freaking out about something. Launce gave a curt nod in her direction, indicating that he was pleased with her response to his little reveal. Cindra was torn by how to respond. On one hand, her father had never truly stood up to anyone in his life, so if he wanted Noelle to be acknowledged by the family, of course he would choose a roundabout way of revealing that information where he wasn't directly involved in the reveal. On the other hand, Cindra watched her brother and father whisper together and realized that they were much too alike to stand up to anyone for any reason. The threat of Ulyssa hung over the Durant family, and no one was going to challenge her. Her secrets were woven into the Durant family, hiding in hidden corners and stealing the life from those forced to hide them.

Well, no more. There was no way that Cindra was going to allow her sister to leave a trail of broken children behind her any more. Things were going to change.

#arkhelios #arkhelios adventures #Cindra durant #jorah durant #noelle helios #sim: noelle helios #durant family

[luverofralts]

#sims 2 pictures #sims 2 #arkhelios #abe chun #lucy chun #arkhelios adventures #nathan chun #luciana bellamy #noelle helios #sim: noelle helios #Adrienne bellamy #elaine helios

[luverofralts]

"Still? When's this going to be over?" Adrienne shouted at the cards on the floor. It was nearly Winterfest, which meant that it was time for the Helios family birthday party. Noelle, Adrienne, and Luciana all had the same birthday and their grandparents wanted to celebrate it the most economical way possible. By combining the three birthdays into one party, Elaine saved time and money. It also usually meant that her children wouldn't feel obligated to show up at her house on Winterfest itself. The less time she had to spend with Nathan and whoever he was bringing home that day, the better.

Theo had absolutely no interest in answering Roman. Instead, he and Adam were texting, since Theo had been unable to ditch the family event. They'd been texting non-stop about all the interesting things Adam was going to do with his own family on the school break. Adam was going snowboarding, and shopping in the high-end magical stores while Theo watched his little sisters blow out candles and his father argue with his siblings for an entire afternoon. They wouldn't get to see each other until after Winterfest, which felt like an eternity. How was he supposed to manage without Adam for so long?

"Theo? Can you help your father set up the living room? He needs a second pair of hands."

"Theo! Now. Go help your father. When you're done, you can come help me make dinner in the kitchen."

"I don't get it!" Adrienne shrieked, shouting at the unresponsive deck of tarot cards on the floor. "They can't just show up here, I told them that! Victoriana is supposed to know and then they come. They'll mess up everything!"

"Rien, put your cards away. Just because it's your birthday doesn’t mean that you can shut yourself away with them. Go celebrate with your sister and cousin. Make a friend, I don't care who. Please, Rien, please."

"Yes, Dad," Adrienne sighed. "But-but it's important that I see what's coming. There are huge plans in motion that-"

"Give me the cards," Roman snapped, cutting his daughter off before she could mumble strange prophecies again. "You're not getting these back for at least a week. No one can accurately predict the future, and even if you could, what's the point if you're not living it? Let whatever happens happen and we'll deal with it then."

"But Dad-"

"Now it's two weeks," Roman declared, glowering in the direction of his son. "Theo! Get off your ass now and help your father or Adam won't be allowed to come over for three months. Now mister, go."

Theo grudgingly stood, no doubt telling Adam how cruel his parents were via text. Roman didn't care what the teenagers thought of him, so long as it got Theo off the couch and helping his family set up.

Elaine passed her youngest son in the hall, deliberately avoiding him as best she could. The last thing she needed was to deal with Nathan's drama while the Bellamys undoubtedly brought enough of their own drama for the day.

"Ugh, Kaeileen is obsessed with me," Nathan grumbled, scrolling through his messages. "'Your child support didn't come in this month, why haven't you signed the form for Naethan's school trip?' Doesn't she have anything better to do with her time than bother me?"

"Happy birthday!" Luciana exclaimed, hugging her grumpy cousin. "What's wrong? We're getting presents and cake today."

"I don't want to talk about it," Noelle replied. "You wouldn't understand. Your parents care about you."

"Oh, what did Aunt Lucy do now?" Luciana asked. "Dad hasn't yelled about her for a long time. Did she get an important case? Is she suing the school so we get a longer break?"

"No, none of that. I found out who my other mom is and...and I can't talk about it."

"Okay!" Luciana chirped, ignoring her cousin's moodiness. Today was still going to be awesome even if Noelle was grumpy. Cake and presents always made things better. "Have you seen the presents on the present table? There's so many of them!"

"I don't care," Noelle sighed dramatically. "It's our birthday and I'll never see my other mother here. I've been abandoned. No one wants me."

"I can get you some pretzels," Luciana offered. She didn't have the focus today to put up with her stepcousin's drama. "Dad hasn't got the desserts out yet, but there are pretzels."

"Hard or soft pretzels?" Noelle asked. "I love the soft ones that just came out of the oven."

"Both," Luciana replied cheerfully. "You know my dad doesn't skimp on anything. Let's go find some before dinner. It'll be fun."

Noelle paused for a moment and considered her options. Her absent mother wasn't a priority to anyone else, and the one mother she did have in her life was completely distracted with her attention seeking behavior. No one wanted to listen to Noelle, so she might as well join her friend for a birthday pretzel.

"Hey, how are things going? Busy? I'm pretty busy. I don't get back to Arkhelios as often as i should," Nicholas said.

His old friend and stepbrother, Nathan, had been erratic their entire lives and didn't often call Nicholas to hang out, so this was probably the only time they'd see each other for a while. From what Nicholas understood, Nathan spent his life jumping from job to job, country to country. He spent days with royalty in Crystal Cove and then weeks hanging out with a vampire coven in Strangetown. Anything to avoid the typical life his mother wanted for him. Anything to avoid paying child support to Kaeileen, not that he held a steady enough job for her to collect from. He had Gareth and his boys for the length of the party, after which, Naethan would be returned to his mother and Gareth and Garth would return with him home, until Nathan had another impulse to disappear again. It wasn't exactly parent or partner of the year behaviour, but no one fought Nathan on it. He always came back, didn't he?

"Yeah, things are busy," Nathan replied dismissively. "I travel a lot, do a little work here and there. I can't complain. You're still where? Strangetown, right? You fled one desert for another. At least they have good clubs there."

Nicholas shrugged.

"I guess so. I wouldn't know, we're expecting our first child soon. All I've been doing is fixing the nursery and reading book after book. It's the greatest thing to ever happen to us. We're so excited."

"Eh, I guess," Nathan replied, rolling his eyes. "They're expensive and whiny too. Don't have too many."

"I can see why Gareth keeps you around," Nicholas remarked. "You're such a romantic."

"Oh, Gareth! Good to see you."

Abe waved to his ex and Nathan's fiancé as he walked down the hall.

"Hey Abe! How's the birthday girls? Excited for their party?"

Abe paused to consider his answer. Noelle had been sulking all day while glaring daggers at her mother and Rien was busy crying on the stairs because Roman took her tarot cards. Luciana at least was running around, shoving food in her mouth and laughing. At least one of the kids seemed to be enjoying the party.

"You know those three, always off doing something," he settled on. "God only knows what Theo's up to too. He's spent the whole morning texting and now I can't find him. He's supposed to be in the kitchen helping, but I can guess what he's actually doing. Just wait until your boys are teenagers; everything you ask of them will suddenly be the end of the world."

Gareth smiled politely.

"I can imagine. Is...uh, is Roman here too? He'd not like, running errands or anything?"

Abe cringed, remembering the first time Nathan had brought Gareth to the family house and how Roman had lost his mind threatening him for having slept with Abe a few times in college. Roman had been better with prolonged exposure to the man and the fact that Gareth was now engaged to Nathan. There was still hostility when Roman went anywhere near Gareth, but Gareth believed that there would be large consequences if Roman threatened him again. He'd lost Elaine's automatic support from his affair with Ulyssa, and Lucy tried not to indulge in petty pranks when her high profile wife was nearby. With all that protecting him, Gareth had downgraded the threat Roman posed enough to just be nervous of the man.

"Roman's in the kitchen, or he will be once he hunts down our son," Abe assured him. I doubt that you'll see him until dinner."

"Gareth? Gareth! Did you send Kaeileen money yesterday? My account is mysteriously missing the amount she wanted. I told you, Mom's going to draft something to get her off our backs."

"Sorry, I should talk with him," Gareth apologized. "He doesn't understand that child support is not optional, and that his mother can't just make his responsibilities go away."

"Yeah, of course," Abe said, watching Gareth storm off to yell at his partner.

He had no idea how Gareth tolerated Nathan. He was Abe's little brother and Abe couldn't stand to be in a room with him for more than ten minutes.

Naethan and Garth were well behaved, unlike their father. They were only half siblings, but they seemed to be inseparable and weren't too impacted by their shared father's inability to be a functioning adult. Abe didn't see them often, as he didn't willingly spend any time near his brother, but it looked like Gareth and Kaeileen's parenting was making up for Nathan's.

Elaine scoured the living room for her missing grandson. Roman was getting pissed off in the kitchen with Ironman, which made Elaine pissed off that her first grandson, with at least some of her DNA in him, was being a lazy slacker. For all the money she helped his parents pay to his fancy school, Theo certainly hadn't been taught manners or responsibility.

"Theodosius Bellamy, you come here this instant. You have been summoned to help with dinner, and if you don't get in there in the next three minutes, there will be consequences. Ironman knows how to block cell reception and take down the wifi network. It'd be a shame if you couldn't call anyone, wouldn't it?"

"God, I have to go, Adam, my bitch grandma is yelling at me for some reason. Yeah, I know. I miss you too. I'll try calling you later."

On his way to the kitchen, Theo's eyes spotted his grandmother's new karaoke machine in the living room. He loved to sing and play guitar, and it was there for the party guests to use, right? One little song wo wuldn't be the end of the world before he was trapped, cutting onions and peppers with his father.

He scanned a few songs in the catalog, while Noelle was already prematurely booing his future performance.

"Boooo! No one wants to hear you sing, leave the machine for the people with talent!" Noelle called out. Teasing Theo was almost too easy, but it helped ease the hurt she felt when she thought of her mothers.

Theo glared back at her, completely unshaken. It would take a lot more than heckling to rattle him. He could be just as petty as her.

"Her name is Noelle, I have a dream about her," Theo sang, making sure that his voice was extra obnoxious for his cousin. "Something something, I've got gym class in half an hour."

"Shut up already!" Noelle shouted, stamping her feet. "It's my birthday, and I'm sick of that stupid song everyone thinks is funny. There are other songs with Noelle in them! You're stupid! This whole party is stupid! Don't make me break your stuff. I'm still a kid, no one will blame me."

"THEODOSIUS ULYSSES BELLAMY. Get in the kitchen now, or I swear to god-"

"Coming," Theo groaned, putting the microphone away angrily. "This whole party sucks. I wish I were with Adam. His parents would never make me help with dinner."

#sims 2 #arkhelios #roman bellamy #abe chun #sim: theo bellamy #lucy chun #elaine helios #noelle helios #sim: noelle helios #luciana bellamy #Adrienne Bellamy #nathan chun #nickolas fontana #theo bellamy #arkhelios adventures

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"Luci, come hang out with me. I'm stuck in stupid Arkhelios and if I have to spend another minute listening to Grandma go on about planning for retirement, I just might snap."

Noelle looked pleadingly at her cousin, trying to look as sad as she possibly could. It had been effortless escaping the Helios lot that she would one day own, but escaping Arkhelios was another matter altogether. At least Luci lived in Arkhelios part time and had access to her computer, bedroom and makeup. While Noelle was stuck at her grandmother's house, she had access to none of those things and she was going stir crazy. Noelle was turning twelve soon and she begged her mother to let her stay home alone, but her mother wouldn't hear of it. Someone had to look after Mikel and Noelle wasn't responsible enough to watch him. Things would probably only worsen once her newest sibling was born. There was no way that Noelle was going to watch her half-demon siblings alone. As a human in a heavily demonic family, she had to look out for herself. 

"I can't, I have to practice," Luci replied. "The track meet is next month and the skating competition is two weeks away. If I don't practice now, I'll blow my chances for nationals this year."

Noelle scoffed. Luci was constantly on the move, running from sport to sport and competition to competition. There wasn't a weekend that she wasn't involved with at least one sport. It was a good thing that her father had money; Noelle knew from experience how expensive extracurriculars were and how hard it was to get a parent to pay for them.

"Get your dad to rig whatever event you're stressing over," Noelle suggested, earning a dirty look from her cousin. "Come hang out with me instead. We can flush Grandma's jewellery until the toilet breaks, she just got it fixed from last time. Or, even better, we could put sugar in the gas tank of her sports car! I'd love to see the look on that cow's face."

Luci laughed, rolling her eyes as she did.

"You're the worst, Nol. There's no way my dad could afford to fix the competition and there's no need. If I practice, first place is practically guaranteed, no money needed. It's what I like, just like senseless destruction seems to be your thing."

"There's nothing wrong with making things interesting," Noelle countered. "Things are interesting in Pleasantview and I manage just fine. It's just stupid Arkhelios and Grandma's dumb house. Why can't my mom leave us with someone in Pleasantview when she has to work? She's only married to the freaking devil, you'd think she would have money to pay someone else to look after her kids."

"I think things are interesting here," Luci protested. "I mean, my dad and Evren's house is nicer and on the beach, but there's still plenty to do in Arkhelios. There's the soccer team you could join if you want. Osbert is a really good coach and we usually win."

"Bleh, no thanks," Noelle scoffed, looking horrified at the idea. "I don't run unless I have to. My make up might get ruined."

"Well, we could see what Rien's up to," Luci suggested. "I'm sure she's helping Dad in the kitchen. You know how he gets this time of year."

Noelle's face immediately brightened at the thought.

"Is it maniacal baking day already? What do you think he's making? Cake? Cookies?"

Luci frowned.

"You shouldn't say things like that," she scolded. "It's not nice."

"It doesn't have to be nice if it's true. We all know why your dad freaks out and turns the house into a bakery this time of year."

Luciana frowned.

"If Ulyssa wasn't such a bitch, she would at least let him meet Georgiana. I mean we all know about her anyway. Why else would he be obsessively making birthday cakes on her birthday and dropping them off at the Durant house?"

"So there is cake?" Noelle asked. "Arkhelios isn't all that bad when it has gourmet cakes to eat."

"Oh my god, Nol. No wonder your mom abandons you here, you're feral. At least try to not upset my dad while you're here. You're too much like your mom sometimes. Maybe if you were nicer, your other mom or dad would have stuck around to raise you. Leave my dad alone and eat some cake before you scare off Aunt Lucy too."

With that, Luciana turned her back to her cousin and headed towards the rink in the yard to practice. Noelle stood stunned in silence. Luciana's words were harsh, but Theo was hardly the only Bellamy to say mean spirited things when provoked. Luciana was far more direct with her anger; it was something that Noelle respected her for. She could handle any anger directed at her and give it right back to her cousin. Luciana was just the kind of girl that Noelle could handle. The two could say horrible things to each other, spend ten minutes cooling down and then hang out happily together.

"This one's ready to go! Come box this up for me, Abe."

Roman admired his work. The Durants were going to love this year's offerings. Every year, Jorah donated Roman's baked goods to charitable causes. He did keep some items for his own family, but the vast majority went to fundraise for the orphans in Strangetown. On this day every year, Jorah would accept the baked goods, separate a cake or two for his family to share over dinner that night and send the rest off. It was sheer coincidence that this day also marked the occasion of Princess Georgiana's birthday and the annual gathering of the entire Durant family to celebrate. Whatever Jorah kept from the baked goods would grace the plate of Princess Georgiana herself and so Roman laboured to make his deserts high quality to satisfy her royal taste buds while also encouraging sales for the needy.

Roman frowned as he cracked another egg on the side of his new bowl.

"This could be the year you change things, Dad. There's an opportunity opening, one that could shift the family dynamics."

Roman jolted out of his focus on a bowl of flour to see his daughter watching him intently.

"Rien! You startled me. Hand me that hand towel, some vanilla spilled over here."

Out of all of his children, Adrienne was by far the quietest. No one saw her coming, or noticed her lurking in the shadows of the house, watching her family. She was quieter than even Too, an actual cat. Roman found the behaviour unsettling, but there was no correcting it. Adrienne was simply a quiet child, unlike most of her siblings. Nothing escaped her watchful eyes, and more often than not, Roman caught his daughter murmuring quietly to herself. She was his grandmother's spitting image behaviourally, though he never quite remembered Malika being quite as socially odd. Maybe his daughter would one day gain the social skills of his grandmother, but until then, Roman had resigned himself to being startled when Adrienne revealed herself.

"Rien, you really can't say things like that," he sighed. "It's a complicated situation, things aren't as easy as they seem to someone your age."

"The spirits wish you were more observant, Dad. There's so much that they want you to know. They want to get to know you, the same way they've gotten to know me."

"Honey, I don't understand all of that and I don't think I'd be any good at it," he replied with a small sigh. "My grandmother was the only one in our family with a connection to these spirits and sometimes I wonder if they really have your best interests at heart when they tell you things. Maybe you should talk with Aunt Wanda if she has the time. She might know more about the occult than I would. Or ask Adam's father the next time he comes to pick up Adam. Please? Just get a second opinion, that's all I ask."

Roman couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw his daughter give him the same horrifying look that Theo usually gave him on weekends home from school. The infamous "I know so much more than you and you don't even realize it" look. Adrienne didn't hold the glare for nearly as long as her brother did, but it felt just as patronizing.

"Sure," she agreed. "I'll do that, Dad. But if I do ask someone for their opinion, then it's only fair that you do the same. You ask someone you think would know about the spirit world and see what they say. Or better yet, why don't you try contacting the spirits themselves? You could borrow my tarot deck."

It was a fair idea, and one that Roman couldn't think of a way of refusing. It wouldn't hurt anything to take out his grandmother's tarot cards and see what happened. Probably nothing, knowing his luck, but if it was that important to his daughter, then Roman would give it a chance.

"Okay, we have a deal," he declared, stirring ingredients in his pot as he spoke. "Now why don't you come help me grease this pan so we can get these cookies in the oven?"

#sims 2 #arkhelios #roman bellamy #adrienne Bellamy #sim: adrienne Bellamy #luciana bellamy #noelle helios #sims 2 pictures #sim: noelle helios #arkhelios adventures

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"Are you sure I look okay? I want her to like me. She usually just ignores me when she's over."

"Trust me, you look amazing. I'm a makeover genius."

Elaine hovered by her friend, admiring her efforts. Their exact relationship was complicated to figure out, so Juliet and Elaina just agreed to be friends. Was the daughter of a robot butler who had once dated Juliet's mom family? Not really. Elaina and her brother lived under the same roof as Juliet, so they felt like siblings at least. Their home situation could only be described as complicated at best.

Ironman and Nikolai had found their way back to each other after Ironman's run from the altar, though not immediately. Nikolai had had a few angry flings and Ironman had spent nearly a year "reprogramming" himself with both a therapist and Orianna's technical know-how. When their parents reunited, Elaina, Nick and the son Nikolai had had with a one night stand all moved back in at the Helios manor. Elaine, Launce, Benvolio and Oriana had welcomed them all back, as had the shy Juliet. Because she was created with undead, mutated genes, Juilet wasn't conventionally attractive and had definitely noticed the difference in how others treated her and her friends. Most people shuddered when she arrived on a lot, some even wondering if she'd somehow escaped Wanda's Zombie Relocation program. The world was a cruel place, especially when her own mother saw Juliet as a failed project or at best, the first draft in an experiment she couldn’t see to completion. 

Because Oriana had tied her life force to Benvolio, they were living on borrowed time together and unable to produce a natural child. Oriana had refused to listen to the demons who had explained this and had tried several different methods of procreation, all of them failures. Her life force had dimmed to the point that she couldn't even get an embryo to form in a laboratory. Every cell in her body was dying slowly and there was nothing science could do to fix that.

And so she had settled for Juliet, the daughter made with cloned cells of zombified Benvolio. Juliet the prototype. Juliet the failure. 

Elaine was still the mistress of the manor, and the Helios heir in control of the estate. She was kind to Juliet and the other children, especially with Launce by her side. She told everyone in the house that they were welcome to live at the manor even when she passed on the ownership to her heir, which was a relief. No one wanted to deal with the whims of Elaine's heir, especially now. 

Lucy Helios was something of a legend in Arkhelios, in the same manner that her nephew was. She was infamous worldwide and larger than life whenever someone had the bad luck to encounter her. Juliet was terrified of her, but her kids seemed nice enough. It was Noelle who she was psyching herself up to greet that night.

Noelle was the queen bee of the lower grades at the Pleasantview Academy of Magic and getting on her good side was the only way someone like Juliet would find acceptance in the world. Noelle had the same domineering, confident personality of her mother, with none of the playfulness. She wasn't even that talented of a witch, but her stepmother had pulled enough strings to get Noelle admitted, and Noelle had done the rest. Juliet looked at a guy like Theo, who attended the school because of his immense raw talent and a girl like Noelle, whose powers seemed to be more oriented to social manipulation and wondered who was more powerful in the end. It would be Noelle who inherited Juliet's house one day, so it never hurt to try to be friendly.

"She's here! Get ready!"

Elaina's brother ran down the hall, calling out to the girls. 

Well, ready or not, here she is.

Noelle glared at the car that had deposited her and her little brother on the driveway of her grandmother's house.

"I don't see why we couldn't have teleported here," she grumbled, holding her little brother's hand so that he wouldn't run out on the street. "Mom's so desperate to look good for this boring place, even though she never comes here."

It had been a turbulent few years for Noelle, with her mother's breaking up with Mikel's father and moving full time to Pleasantview to live with her new wife. Lucy hadn't told anyone yet, but Noelle could see clear as day that she was going to be getting a new sibling soon, which meant that she moved even further down the list of her mother's priorities. 

"Come on, Mikel. The faster we get inside, the faster this will be over with and we can go home." 

"Noelle! You're here! Hi!"

Noelle glanced at the house where three kids, all dressed in purple dresses waved like they were in some sort of cringe parade. Great.

"Hey. Where's Grandma? I think Mikel is hungry or something."

The trio of kids tried to hide their disappointment at her words but kept smiling.

"Mikel! Who's my favourite yellow eyed demon? Who's going to be a great lawyer some day unlike his degenerate parents?"

Noelle stared at her grandmother with disgust. Her grandmother barely tolerated half of her grandkids, but she'd been reading up about the hierarchies of demons lately and discovered that her grandson had potential because of his father. While Elaine had sneered at her daughter’s child with her boss initially, further research had indicated that Mikel would be respected by other demons despite being half-human and that was enough for Elaine. If her daughter insisted on bringing home demons, then Elaine would at least make sure that they were high quality demons.

"You're supporting a biological hierarchy that's just a construct of demon society, Elaine," Noelle sneered, looking bored after being in her grandmother's company for several minutes. "Theo is more powerful than Mikel will ever be and yet you aren't praising him for his genetic potential. You're racist."

Elaine shot her granddaughter a tired look.

"Noelle, honey, why don't you go play upstairs with the other children?" she sighed. "You can all talk about how horrible I am while I get your brother a snack. Ironman will bring something up for you guys too."

"Bitch. You only care about him and Saturnia, your precious favourites," Noelle muttered under her breath as she walked past her grandmother. “They're not the ones who will own all your stuff when you finally die."

"What?"

Elaine glared at her granddaughter, assuming correctly that all of the girl's murmuring was directed at her.

"Nothing, god. I'm going upstairs you stupid cow."

"Noelle, I think we should probably just go play cards or something. Elaine looked kinda mad."

Elaina fidgeted nervously as Noelle continued belting out a song on the karaoke machine. Elaine hadn't forbidden them from using the machine, but the kids assumed that she'd be angry all the same.

"I'm not done," Noelle insisted. "I'm having fun in this dump while I'm stuck here. I don't care what Elaine or my mom wants. I'm only stuck here because my mom wants 'alone time' with my dumb stepmom and school wouldn't keep us over the weekend. At least your parents want you guys around here."

Juliet beamed, finally having an in with the popular girl.

"My mom hates me," she said proudly. "She wishes that she could ship me off to school, but Dad won't let her. So we're the same, kinda."

Noelle blinked slowly, taking this information in. Her face didn't change at all, but her eyes stared at the girl, sizing her up.

"Hmm, you know what's more fun than karaoke?"

"Chess?"

"Darts?"

Noelle smiled, ignoring both girls' suggestions. 

"Come on, we'll have some real fun tonight. Let's go hang out in the basement." 

"I don't think we should be down here," Nick said worriedly, looking at their surroundings in fear. 

No one was supposed to go in the basement. Elaine had forbidden it long ago. Only terrible, dangerous things happened down there. None of the kids could even imagine the horrors that dwelt there despite having vivid imaginations. The basement was a dark place with interdimensional portals leading to even darker places and only the demonic beings in their family were qualified to step foot there. Why did Noelle want to go there? No sane person should.

"Relax," Noelle laughed. "I know what I'm doing. It's the only place where I can call her. Her parents took away her phone for an…incident at school."

Those words were hardly reassuring to the group of children, but none of them spoke out against whatever Noelle had planned. 

"Here, hold this," she said, shoving a candle from behind the stairs into Juliet's hands. "I left some here last time."

With a snap of her fingers, the candle wick burst into a brilliant flame and Juliet tried not to gasp in shock. Behind her, Elaina and Nick were already starting to tremble. What dark magic was about to erupt from the shadows of this horrible place?

Noelle bent down near the remains of a magic circle and removed one of her mother's lipstick tubes from her pocket, dragging it along the stone, reigniting the magic within it.

All of the kids held their breath, hoping against hope that they would survive this supernatural encounter. Would it be a blood thirsty vampire that appeared? Maybe a violent werewolf? Could it be the same monstrous demons who had come for Roman and Theo in the past? 

Noelle cleared her throat and the other children braced themselves for the dark Latin incantations they would surely hear.

"Hey, Destiny! I'm bored and stuck in stupid Arkhelios. Come hang out with me and my lame…cousins? I don't know what they are, but I'm stuck with them."

All the children stared at the glowing circle in confusion. This wasn't what they'd been expecting. Where was the blood or the Latin chanting? Things never looked like this in the movies. 

"Is she calling out to her destiny like a Ouija board or tarot cards?" Elaina whispered. "Is this a fortune telling spell? Can it tell the future?"

Beside her, Juliet shook her head, utterly baffled at how this night was turning out. She'd gone from wanting to impress Noelle to fearing for her life. Would her parents find her body? Would they be mad at her for dying before they did? Juliet prayed that her death would at least be quick.

"Ugh, Arkhelios? It's so dry there and it smells like demons. Can't you meet me in Crystal Cove? My mom's out drinking with their stupid brother again and Dad is going to find out if I keep breaking the house sigils to leave."

The children's fear slowly turned to awe as they realized that they weren't actually about to die or have their fatal fortunes read.

"So walk down the road and teleport from there," Noelle groaned. "It's not hard, you're not bound to it like a demon. Your parents are too lame to notice anyway and if they do, blame Davis."

A groan came from the the circle and then a grudging sigh.

"Fine. But you're buying lunch this week."

After almost three minutes had passed, the circle began to shimmer and a teenage girl with long black hair appeared before their eyes. Noelle looked happy to see this girl, while the other children just stared, their eyes as big as saucers.

"Hey guys, this is my friend Destiny," Noelle informed the shocked children. "She's in an older class, but she goes to my school. She's really powerful, so don't piss her off."

"Noelle!"

Noelle shrugged, ignoring her friend's outburst as if she were the older girl.

"Well you are. They don't need a novel about you, they only need to know that you're cool. Much cooler than them."  Her eyes gleamed with teenage rebellion. "Let's steal Grandma's wine and hang out at the pool! She's such an alcoholic that she won't notice some bottles missing."

Juliet stared at the girl she had hoped to impress in astonishment. She'd always known that Lucy was an unpredictable loose cannon, and apparently some of that attitude had transferred to her daughter. Did Noelle frequently steal from her grandmother or was this just an idea to impress her older friend? 

Destiny snapped her fingers and in an instant, a bottle of red wine appeared in her hands. 

"Piece of cake," she boasted. "Easier than my mom's wine rack and they keep that thing well stocked."

"I…I don't think I'm thirsty," Juliet stammered. Beside her, Nick and Elaina nodded solemnly. Their parents would kill them if they caught the kids drinking with a teenager who came from a magic circle in their creepy basement. 

"Babies," Noelle muttered, taking a swig from the bottle and passing it back to her friend. 

"Lay off them, they're just kids," Destiny laughed. "Their parents actually care where they are, unlike yours." 

"Right, just like Death himself wouldn’t ground you if he knew where you were?” Noelle teased. “You’re like a demi-god, aren’t you? Go have fun.”

“Not really and you know that,” Destiny replied, ignoring the quizzical looks from the other children. “I’m much closer to your powers than I am my parents’. Don’t start with the demi-god thing or I’ll have lines of people lining up at the school asking me to sign things and heal people. There’s no way I’m going through that again.”

“So what’s it like having gods for parents?” Elaina asked, looking at the night sky.

The group had retired outside to drink and stargaze, which had seemed less nerve wracking than anything else Noelle had suggested so the other children had quickly agreed to it. Noelle seemed to be smiling and relaxed, which put Juliet at ease. Noelle was probably settled in for the night and didn’t have more plans that would get them in trouble.

“Kinda fun some days,” Destiny replied, staring at the stars intently. “Less fun other days. A lot of people have an idea of who you’re supposed to be and don’t want to let you be yourself.”

Juliet nodded beside her, feeling a new sense of camaraderie with the teen.

“I get that completely. Lots of people have plans about what I should be too.”

“Me too.”

Noelle’s whispered reply had been barely audible, but Juliet had heard it all the same. Her heart twinged at the tone of it and the hidden sorrow the girl surely felt spilled out in those words. Underneath the callous attitude, it was beginning to look like Noelle had a vulnerable side, one that had been wounded long past healing. Maybe it was because of the alcohol or just the company, but deep down, Juliet could see the girl Noelle wanted to be. Call it supernatural intuition or just being a good judge of character, but Juliet could see the hidden Noelle screaming to be seen and helped. Clearly Lucy’s parenting left a lot to be desired, and no one knew who Noelle’s other parent could be.

“There’s two moons out tonight!” Elaina gasped, pointing at the sky. “Is that even possible?”

“Anything is possible,” Destiny laughed. “Don’t you believe in other universes? Other planes of existence besides our own? Who’s to say that that’s not a natural phenomenon of the barriers between the demonic void and here? Maybe it’s the afterlife accepting lost wayward souls. You never know.”

“Do you know?” Elaina demanded. “What is it?”

“A sign that I have to go back home now. Dad is probably pissed off that I left.”

“What? Your dad uses a second moon to get your attention? Why not just call?”

Destiny just laughed and started gathering her things.

“I never said that he did. Just keep an open mind about things and maybe one day you’ll know what it means. Anyway, it’s been fun. Noelle, I was serious about buying lunch this week.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get some money from my mom,” Noelle replied. “See you then.”

As the mysterious girl faded from view, Juliet looked up at the sky and the mysterious moons. Was it really an overlap of dimensions or just something Destiny had made up? One day when her parents eventually died, would she be able to see them cross into the afterlife in the sky above her? Would they be able to tell her that they were okay and not to worry about never seeing them again? It was a pleasant thought at least which she hoped was true.

“Noelle! Why am I missing two wine bottles? I’m calling your mother about this!”

Noelle laughed as her grandmother continued shouting at her from the window.

“Go ahead!” she called out. “She doesn't care! Mom lets me do whatever I want.”

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios adventures #Mikel Helios #Juliet fontana #Nick Helios #Elaina Helios #destiny lane #elaine helios #noelle helios #sim: noelle helios

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"It's not easy being a leader, is it? When you lead, you sometimes have to make unpopular choices."

Jorah stared at his father, unsure of what to say. Leading was hard, and the more he tried, the less Jorah felt he was any good at it. He'd called Ulyssa and asked her to meet him at the Durant house "to talk". If she had any idea of what he wanted to discuss, she hadn't said so. Still, Jorah made sure that their father was around the house, both as a lawyer and as someone who at least used to have some power over his sister.

Valerian had rescued the picture of Roman, Abe and Ulyssa from the bottom drawer of the office and placed it prominently in the hall. Just another reminder to get the collective Durant family's shit together. Valerian had argued with Jorah throughout the night once he'd learned about Abe's visit. Until Jorah stepped up and dealt with his sister, Valerian was going to stay with his parents. He didn't want to be around a so called family man who didn't think of his family. It was cruel what Ulyssa was doing to Roman and Valerian wouldn't stand for it. Roman walked around Arkhelios looking like a ghost of himself, and his failing restaurant was falling deeper into debt every day. The man was a family sim and he'd never once held his daughter. It shouldn't matter that Maura was queen of Twikkii Island, Jorah was supposed to rule the Durant family and Georgiana was very much a Durant.

"Do you think I'm a bad leader, Dad?" Jorah mumbled. "I mean, Valerian has a point, but Ulyssa...she never listens to anyone, especially me. She was supposed to lead our family, not me. No one listens to me."

"Because you let them," Launce replied. "You're a lot like me, Jorah. Your mother dictated what I was to do during our marriage and your grandmother is still telling me what socks to wear to work."

"And Elaine. She doesn't listen to anyone, especially not you," Jorah added.

"Who says that I'm complaining about that?" Launce laughed. "Elaine knows what she wants and she cares very deeply about her family. You and I could learn a thing or two from her about being assertive."

"I guess. How do you think I should approach this?"

Launce chuckled, shaking his head.

"That's entirely for you to decide," he said. "I have a few ideas, but it's your responsibility to keep the peace in the family. I'm old now and far too connected to the Helios family. I'll always be here to support you, but you have to make these choices on your own. Your husband wants to see the man you truly are and for the sake of your marriage, you have to show him."

"Grandpa! I'm bored. Can we go to the mall yet?"

Jorah paused at the sight of Lucy's young daughter, Noelle suddenly appearing in the hall.

"What's she doing here?" Jorah asked in horror. "Why is she calling you Grandpa?"

"Because I'm married to her grandmother, of course," Launce answered as if there were no other reasons that Ulyssa's daughter might call him Grandpa.

Jorah had learned the truth of Noelle's true biological mother in the same way he had learned about Georgiana's father: out of Ulyssa's desperation to hide the truth. His sister had broken the heart of his best friend and it wouldn't look good on Ulyssa to have a bastard child out there to potentially embarrass the crown. Jorah only knew so that he could keep the truth hidden, much like he did for Georgiana. He was keeping two secrets now for his sister because of her poor impulse control.

Learning about Ulyssa's fling with Lucy had broken his heart. It had been obvious growing up that Lucy was obsessed with his sister. He could only imagine the pain she felt being rejected for a princess, forced to raise their child alone. It was cruel. So much of Ulyssa's life seemed to be based on cruelty, whether it was to Roman or Lucy or the kids who deserved to know the truth. It wasn't his place to let the truth escape, or so he told himself. It was for his sister's sake, and for Maura's sake and for Wanda who didn't deserve a war to break out against Arkhelios because Ulyssa couldn't keep her hands to herself. Somehow, everything always came back to Ulyssa. No other Durant could ever come close to the disaster that was Jorah's sister. He could only imagine how she would have run the Durant family had she accepted her role as eldest child. They would probably be at war with the Bellamys, or the subject of some demonic war she provoked.

"Elaine had to run some errands, so Noelle and I are spending some time together," Launce explained. "I promised to take her to the mall after. Maybe we can stop by Roman's restaurant afterward."

"Dad, you know that Ulyssa is coming over," Jorah said, stressing his words so his father might reconsider. "Maybe you guys should head out early. Noelle's bored."

"No, I haven't seen Ulyssa in ages," Launce insisted firmly. "I'd like to see my daughter, Jorah. Noelle's got her game to keep her busy. We'll be just fine waiting a little bit longer."

"Dad! Aunt Ulyssa is here!"

Jorah tried not to flinch at the news. He smiled instead and shot his father a worried look.

"Thanks, Hamnet. I'm coming."

Jorah found his sister standing in the hall, looking at a photo. It was one of the ones Valerian had left untouched in his angry redecorating spree. No matter how angry he was at Jorah, Valerian would never hide their wedding photos.

"Hey, Ulyssa, how's it going?" Jorah greeted cautiously. "Admiring my wedding photo? I told Lucy that we had a timeless look. Her dress looked great, I don't care what she says. Of course it wasn't as big or expensive as your wedding."

"Lucy looks tacky no matter what she's dressed in," Ulyssa replied, rolling her eyes. "Especially now that she's shacked up with the devil. What does that say about Lucy that only the devil can tolerate her? It's literally hell having to live with her."

"I don't think it works that way," Jorah said cautiously, remembering his many conversations with Ewan about the afterlife. "You shouldn't say things like that, Ulyssa. She's the mother of your child, after all. That has to count for something."

Ulyssa scoffed, offended at the very idea of discussing Lucy's daughter.

"Don't start with that," she groaned. "I have nothing to do with Noelle; she's not mine. All I did was make a mistake when I'd had too much to drink."

"You seem to make a lot of mistakes, drinking or not," Jorah muttered to himself. If Ulyssa heard him, she didn't acknowledge it.

"Look, Georgiana is one thing, I care about Roman. I chose to have an affair with him. It was wrong, but I chose to do it. The only way I'd touch Lucy is if I'm drunk and she knew that. She invited me drinking, she hit on me when I wasn't thinking straight and she kept the pregnancy. All of those things are out of my control."

"You can't mean that," Jorah gasped, utterly horrified. "I know Lucy, she's been my best friend since we were babies. She cares about you. You broke her heart."

When Ulyssa made no reply to him, Jorah tried another angle.

"At least see Noelle," he pleaded. "You met her when she was a toddler, you can still start a relationship before she starts high school."

Ulyssa's only answer was to glower at her brother.

"Fine. At least let Roman meet his daughter then. He's going insane being so isolated from Georgiana. They've never even met, even when she was an infant and wouldn't remember him. Abe's worried enough about him to come to me and ask for your intervention. If you cared about Roman at all, you would let the two of them meet. Come on, Ulyssa, you can't be this heartless. I know you care about Roman. He's suffering. Help him."

"Is this why I'm here?" Ulyssa demanded. "For you to guilt trip me about people I don't care about? Newsflash, Jorah, I have a very powerful, still angry wife and five kids to raise. I don't have time to try to fix the various problems of Arkhelios."

"Problems that you caused," Jorah shouted, losing his patience. Valerian needed him to stand up to his sister and Jorah's own father seemed to have the same opinion. "You just keep hurting people, Ulyssa. Don't tell Georgiana that Roman is her father. Just say he makes her cakes. How hard is that? Send Noelle some money for Winterfest and start a relationship with her as her friendly godmother or something. Anything!"

"Hey, Ulyssa. Come give your dad a hug."

Launce reached out his hands, inviting his daughter in for a hug. Ulyssa didn't move.

"Who's that?" she asked instead. "Did Lucy tell you to bring her? Are you ganging up on me too? I'm not interested in being anywhere near Lucy or any of her damned kids."

Noelle hid behind the screen of her game, unable to sort though what she'd heard. Had her mother's identity been unmasked after all this time? Was her mother really queen consort of Twikkii Island? This couldn't be some sick kind of joke, no one was laughing.

"That's no way to treat your father," Launce said calmly. He'd learned how to copy Elaine's poker face exactly by now. "I thought queen consorts knew how to be polite when speaking to their parents and families. We are all still a family even if your wife is special. Nothing comes between family."

"Look at how happy we were," Jorah continued, swiveling a frame on the table for her to see. You're a Durant, ruining the happiness of the Bellamy heir because he chose Abe over you. Hiding from the Helios heir because she makes you feel bad for abandoning your child. Just because you moved away, life doesn't stop in Arkhelios. Be my sister again, please."

Ulyssa stared at her graduation photo guiltily. Her whole group of siblings were there, smiling in her presence. Even Hunter looked like he was at ease with them and Ulyssa had never seen that man relax.

"I...."

It was true that she missed certain parts of Arkhelios and some of its people. She'd given everything to Maura and the crown, without regret. She was more than happy to be a Siew, living in a castle with other Siews and raising the children that she'd wanted. Her life was busy enough without a complicated biological daughter to explain to people. Even if she wanted to, and she didn't, explaining Noelle's existence to a population who already openly speculated about Georgiana's parentage was not an option.

Cindra quickly pressed back against the wall after risking a glance at the situation unfolding in the kitchen. She hoped she hadn't been seen so that she wasn't dragged into this before she could process her own feelings.

Ulyssa slept with Lucy? She's pretty much been engaged to Maura since they were teens. When did this happen? How did it happen? Why can't Ulyssa stop cheating on Maura? Maura is a lovely person and rich beyond imagining. Why would Ulyssa even want to cheat on a woman like that, especially for Roman Bellamy?

And Noelle. That poor child. This was how she found out that Ulyssa was her mother? Obviously, Dad planned this visit to overlap with Ulyssa's appearance, but Ulyssa had been so cruel.

And Roman. God, what am I supposed to do with this horrible information? Obviously, he had his affair with Ulyssa, but I never thought that Georgiana could be his. No wonder Abe's been so worried about him. She just turned six and Roman's never even seen her in person. I couldn't imagine being held back from Yorick or Iris; I'd rather die.

If this is how Jorah thinks we should treat each other, he's completely wrong. Lauren barely calls from university and Ulyssa is leaving a trail of broken families everywhere she goes. His own husband disagrees with him. If Jorah can't work this out, then its time for someone else to fix this mess.

#arkhelios #arkhelios adventures #noelle helios #sim: noelle helios #hamnet durant #Jorah durant #sim: ulyssa durant #ulyssa durant #durant family #launce durant

[luverofralts]

Simstober Day 8: Toad

Noelle’s not entirely sure how she got to this secluded pond in the wilderness, but she’d very much like to leave it in one piece.

@simstober​

#sims #sims 2 #simstober #simstober challenge #simstober 2022 #sim: noelle helios

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

Some of the blistering heatwave Arkhelios had been under was finally beginning to relent. It was still hot, but safe enough for the kids to run around the yard without wearing a bottle of sunscreen each. It had been days since his conversation with his uncle, and Roman was still happy to willfully ignore everything they’d discussed. Osbert’s daughter didn’t attend the same school as Theo anymore, and while Lucy lived in the same house as the girl, Lucy didn’t seem interested in conquering the Yoxall family along with the Rivales family. Roman wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do the next time he ran into Osbert, or how he could remain calm enough to accuse him of breaking up the Bellamy family. That was a conversation that would happen well into the future, if it happened at all. Roman was exceptionally good at running away from his problems.

The project for the afternoon was catching bugs and trying to identify them. Theo was working on a project for school and his sisters were assisting him as best they could. Their help usually ended with Roman’s front yard flowers being dug up, but he didn’t really have an attachment to them anyway. They had been an addition from Wanda’s reign over the household. The girls had insisted on Roman dressing up to help them dig for bugs, while Theo was keeping to himself for a suspicious amount of time.

Roman watched his son carefully. The project had only called for a few specimens to be caught and properly identified, but lately Roman had been noticing some strange behaviour in the local wildlife.

“Theod-Theo,” Roman called, catching himself before he used his son’s full name. The school had been insistent on keeping Theo’s name private and his parents were doing their best to comply. “I couldn’t help noticing that these beetles were moving in perfect synchronization.”

“What does that mean?” Theo asked, focused intently on an ant hill.

“It means that they’re moving together at the same time,” Roman explained, trying to sound authoritative. “Kind of like the squirrels yesterday who lay on the ground staring at each other all afternoon. They moved their paws together too and have been sitting on the same branch all day, just staring at each other.”

“And?”

Roman sighed heavily. This wasn’t exactly how he imagined parenting would be.

“Theo, I want you to be honest with me,” he began. “Are you doing magic with the animals around here?”

Theo nodded excitedly, and held in his hands two slugs that were wrapped around each other tightly.

“Yeah,” he exclaimed proudly. “I’m practicing! I need to practice if I’m going to run your wedding. My teacher says humans are harder to join, and I don’t want to mess up in front of everyone. Look! These guys are in love now. They share a connection, like you and Dad will.”

Roman stared at the writhing mass of slugs before him and tried not react.

This is a positive step. My son is talented and needs to be encouraged. I will not end up mindlessly staring at Abe until we undoubtedly starve to death and the house burns down. My son is talented and needs to be encouraged.

“Good job,” Roman said weakly. “Maybe you shouldn’t bond everything you see though, buddy. What about some animals that mate for life? Or the fish? I don’t see the harm in bonding the fish in your tank.”

Theo’s eyes grew huge with excitement.

“I should!” he exclaimed, already starting to run inside when Roman caught him.

“Hey, let’s finish your other homework first and then we’ll see about the fish. Maybe your teacher has a better exercise to practice with. You can ask her on Monday. We should get you something to drink in a minute. We’ve been out here for a while now.”

To Roman’s surprise, his bug hunting group was about to have unexpected visitors.

“Abe? Your siblings are here,” he called out.

Abe poked his head curiously out the front door.

“Both of them? Something must be wrong.” He stepped on the porch cautiously and handed a cup of water to his son. “Here’s the water you wanted. You guys need to stay hydrated out here.”

“I didn’t ask for-” Theo began.

Lucy waved to Abe and Noelle copied her.

“Hey, Abe, I have some things to look over with you if you have time,” she said. Lucy threw an irritated glance at the brother beside her. “This asshole is here to get him out of my house. He keeps skulking around with Tennyson, getting up to god knows what. He’s supposed to be at university.”

“Hey Roman,” Nathan greeted, leaning towards his future brother in law flirtatiously. “Why don’t we leave the boring Chuns here and find somewhere private to talk? I mean, I’ve already been possessed by one demon, and I’m open to being possessed by another.”

“Oh my god Nathan, you’re the literal worst,” Lucy scolded her brother. “I know you’re pathetic, but Roman? Really?”

“Is your little brother hitting on me?” Roman whispered to his fiance. “Hitting on me by implying he slept with my grandfather...as a child?”

Abe gave his brother a nasty look, which Lucy seconded.

“I don’t know, Roman. My brother must be confused,” Abe stated coldly, staring his brother dead in the eye. “Clearly he takes after our father, and thinks that engaged or married people are fair game to flirt with. I don’t think he realizes that Gareth didn’t mean anything to me and that flirting with you will have...consequences he may not want.”

Abe’s words hung in the air, but Nathan refused to acknowledge them. Instead he blew Roman a kiss and laughed when Abe became so angry, his brother could almost see the steam coming out his ears. Lucy had been right, Abe was fun to pick on.

“Can we all stop pretending that Roman is desirable in anyway and get out of the sun? It’s making Noelle cranky.”

“She’s only cranky because you’ve started taking an interest in her,” Nathan muttered under his breath. “She was doing fine until you decided to try to be a mother.”

“Go to hell Nathan,” Lucy snapped. She hadn’t heard exactly what he’d said, but she could assume it was something awful about her from the look on his face. “If you’re so hot for demons, maybe you’ll like it better there.”

Roman started to protest that the dimension demons lived in wasn’t anything like a stereotypical hell, but changed his mind. The Helios-Chuns weren’t worth correcting when they all got like this.

“I’m always in hell, as long as you’re nearby,” Nathan shot back, earning a not so friendly punch on the arm from his older sister.

“Send him to Pleasantview. I’ll see him there in Pleasantview.”

“Abe?”

Roman rushed to his fiance’s side as he gripped his head tightly. This was the second return of Abe’s random mumbling about Pleasantview and neither of them knew what it meant.

“I’ll see him there. In Pleasantview. Send him there.”

“Uh, maybe you should go lie down again,” Lucy suggested, maneuvering him away from Roman’s worried grasp and into the house. “Were you out in the sun for too long?”

Lucy had shoved Noelle into her brother’s arms before escorting Abe away in search of a cold compress and left Roman standing awkwardly with his future brother in law.

“Finally, we’re alone,“ Nathan said in a voice that Roman assumed was trying to be seductive. Roman had seen Nathan potty train while visiting Abe as a teen. It was impossible for Roman to ever see the troubled Chun in a sexual way, whatever game Nathan was playing at.

“What do you possibly think is going to happen between us?” Roman asked curiously. “I’m marrying your brother. We’re having another kid together. I don’t remember a time when we’ve even spoken to each other back when we lived in the same house. What are you getting out of this? Did Nickolas dare you to hit on me or something?”

Nathan smiled coyly, his expression cryptic with his sunglasses obstructing his eyes. 

“I’m the Helios heir,” he replied. “I care deeply about the other families of Arkhelios and their happiness. Rumour has it that you’re about to take a giant step with my brother, and I just wanted to let you know that I’m here if you need me. For anything.”

Roman frowned. Lucy had probably talked about Roman’s impending wedding contract with her fiancee where Nathan could overhear her. He had apparently been spending a considerable amount of time at the Rivales house if Lucy’s complaints were any indicator. Roman’s marriage to Abe was public knowledge, but they had been careful not to mention Theo’s homework assignment in front of anyone who wasn’t Lucy. She had to be Nathan’s source. There was still something off about Nathan that put Roman on edge, but he couldn’t quite pin down what that was.

“Thanks,” Roman said, carefully watching Nathan’s reaction. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I need your help.”

Lucy, Roman knew. He could usually predict her reactions with some degree of accuracy, though no one could really be one hundred percent sure about what went through her devious mind. He once shared an unspoken connection with Abe, and their hearts and minds were nearly synchronized as they prepared to be connected again. Nathan was the truly unreadable Chun. In the chaos of his teen years, Roman had been too busy to notice the withdrawn little brother that Abe usually ignored. As the years passed, that little boy had grown into the hostile, bitter man who seemed to take joy in Roman’s discomfort. Whatever therapy Elaine had paid for all those years ago seemed to have no effect on her son. Nathan’s uneasy hostility was something Roman would have to keep an eye on going forward, especially if he knew about their planned wedding contract.

“Veni huc ad me!”

Lucy looked worriedly over her shoulder to see if Roman was anywhere nearby. Abe was mumbling even worse now and Roman would have him in the emergency room within ten minutes if he saw this. With everything Lucy had seen over the years of dealing with the Bellamy family, she had her doubts that a hospital could fix what was happening with her brother. It was never a good sign when ordinary people suddenly started babbling in latin.

“Can you try that again a little slower this time?” she asked. She had been taking latin for a while now for her job, but she still couldn’t easily pick it up when it wasn’t written down for her. It wasn’t exactly what her co-workers spoke around the office. One department was notorious for not even using the language; they just spent their paperwork through and hoped a higher department translated it for them.

Abe shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

“I saw it the other day. It was here, she had to have left it for me to find!”

“She?”

Abe bolted towards Roman’s office, which was still littered with Kamalani’s mediocre paintings. Lucy watched anxiously as her brother began sorting through them while still muttering to himself.

“Abe? Are you okay? Those are just dumb paintings, they don’t matter. Come lie down before Roman kills me for bringing them over in the first place. Please?”

If Abe hadn’t been desperate to find a painting he’d noticed from before, he would have been stunned to hear his sister actually say the word please and sound like she meant it. He would have to file that oddity away for later when his brain wasn’t being driven towards some kind of revelation.

“Abe? Come on, this isn’t funny anymore.”

Lucy unlocked her phone and scrolled through the list of saved numbers. Her finger hovered above a familiar number for what felt like an eternity, but she couldn’t bring herself to dial it. No, this was something she had to try to fix for herself first.

“Here! Here it is!”

Lucy tried to get a closer look at the painting Abe was triumphantly waving around. It didn’t look like anything special to her. It was hardly interesting enough to merit hanging on a wall. For a professional artist, Kamalani’s work was bland and dull.

“This isn’t anything, Abe,” she said gently. “It’s barely worth the materials it took to paint it.”

“Veni huc ad me,” Abe insisted, pointing to the title written in the corner of the painting. “This is important. I’ve seen this before.”

“Roman’s wearing that stupid hat, if that’s what you mean,” Lucy said skeptically. “That’s hardly shocking proof of some great conspiracy.”

“I’ve seen this shot before! I know I have! When you removed the bond between me and Roman, I saw...something. Weird things, things about the past! Kamalani was there watching me, thinking that I was Roman. She wants out of wherever she is and she wants Roman. What does this title mean, Lucy? I can hear it repeat over and over in my mind, but I have no idea what it means. Is it a threat?”

Lucy stared at the inscription, being careful not to show any emotion while translating it. The last thing she needed was for Abe to freak out and set Roman into a panic attack because she’d mistranslated a simple sentence.

“Do you know where this picture is set?” she asked cautiously. “It’s a desert in the painting, does that mean it’s in Arkhelios?”

Abe shook his head.

“It was in Strangetown,” he confirmed. “I saw Roman with some guy and then this woman just standing there. She has braids in the picture, just like Kamalani always wore. It was at the orphanage where Roman worked. In my vision she was watching him. This means something.”

“Uh, weird question, you two don’t happen to have a reason to visit there, right? No hidden kids, no secret affairs?”

“What do you think?” Abe snapped, and his sister shrugged.

“I had to ask,” she replied. “The title means ‘come here to me’, which is a little odd, considering that you think Kamalani of all people is asking you guys to meet her in a foreign orphanage.”

Abe sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. Judging from Roman’s earlier conversation with Hunter, he had an idea of why Kamalani wanted her son to travel to the orphanage that Keiki had been discovered in. Roman was going to have a breakdown when Abe told him that the mother he was terrified of was somehow influencing his fiance to meet her in the foreign country his supposed half-sister was from.

“I think I’m feeling okay now, can you take the kids for an hour or two?” he asked wearily. “Roman and I have to have a discussion and I think it’s probably for the best if they’re not here to interrupt us.”

“Only if you take me with you to Strangetown when you inevitably concoct some poorly thought out trip there,” she said. “This sounds like more demonic nonsense and the two of you can’t be trusted not to fall into some kind of trap without my help.”

“Consider it a deal if you also get rid of Nathan. I have no idea what’s up with him lately, only that he seems determined to get under Roman’s skin. The last thing I need is for him make this whole thing worse.”

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #Roman Bellamy #Abe chun #lucy chun #nathan chun #sim: Theo Bellamy #sim: Luciana Bellamy #sim: Adrienne Bellamy #sim: noelle helios #sims 2 pictures

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

“Hold still, that pose looks great.”

Maura fumbled with her phone’s settings until she got the picture she wanted. Noelle was wriggling pretty hard to get away from Ulyssa and Ulyssa looked baffled at how to hold her despite all the times she’d held Theo.

“There. That picture looks cute. We could get a print of it to put in our suite. It would look nice next to Theo’s school picture.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Ulyssa lied, watching her daughter crawl away from her to play with a toy.

All I need now is for Nathan to have a kid. Then I’ll have a picture of each of the Chun grandchildren on my wall.

A few hours later, Tennyson came to collect the children he’d brought over and Mark allowed himself to relax. The princesses were lounging on a sofa, and Jorah was busy in the kitchen cleaning up that morning’s dishes. As long as he wasn’t being graded on his performance, Mark allowed himself to relax too.

He would find his own way home in order to spend as much time as he could with the adults. Even if the princesses didn’t find something for him, it didn’t hurt to have a good relationship with the Durant heir. Jorah and his husband seemed to be miles away though, so it seemed safe to play with his handheld game. If they weren’t going to pay any attention to him, maybe he could do what he wanted and they’d just assume he’d been doing something important while they were lost in thought. It usually worked with his own parents where every adult was overworked or stressed and there was a crowd of children to keep track of.

“I never thought I’d see the day that Tennyson took orders from Lucy,” Ulyssa chuckled. “She’s really taken over the Rivales family. The Yoxalls too apparently. When is the wedding supposed to be? I don’t imagine that I’m on the guest list.”

Jorah shrugged.

“There isn’t a firm date. Lucy’s always busy with work now and Kaeileen can’t make any of the decisions or Lucy will have a fit. I apparently have a long list of things to do as her sim of honour, but I’ve yet to see it.”

“I don’t know what they see in each other,” Valerian said. “They have nothing in common and Kaeileen almost died because of a demon, while Lucy works for them. If Abe wasn’t so boring and terrified of the supernatural, I’d wonder if there was any demonic blood in the Chun family. Lucy and Nathan are...something else.”

Ulyssa laughed at the thought of a demonic Abe. His siblings maybe, but never Abe.

“Speaking of Chun demons, there’s apparently going to be more of them soon. I assume Roman’s doctor’s appointment today was a checkup on the baby, he never talks about anything else these days. ‘Abe’s eating this’, ‘I caught Abe lifting something heavy’, it never ends. I thought he was strict with Theo, but apparently he can be even more obsessive and protective.”

“Abe’s pregnant?”

A string of curse words flew out of Valerian’s mouth, startling Ulyssa.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” she asked worriedly. “Jorah, you’re not still hung up on Roman, right? You’re happily married and I think those two idiots might just wither and die if they spent a single day apart from each other. Trust me, Valerian is the better husband. You dodged a bullet there.”

“How many kids does he get to have?” Valerian groaned, balling his hands into fists at the injustice of the world. “We can’t even have one and people like him- How can this-It’s not fair!”

Ulyssa stared blankly at the tantrum her brother in law was currently having, trying to make sense of this outburst.

“Y-You’ve been trying for kids?” she asked quietly. “I mean, I guess I assumed that you were trying to get your careers started or enjoying your time as newlyweds without the work of having kids, but then again, you have been picking out baby names since we were kids. I’m sorry. Have you seen a doctor at all?”

Jorah grabbed his husband by the hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“We’re working on it,” he replied curtly. “Adam doesn’t think there’s anything really wrong; it just isn’t happening. We’ll figure it out.”

“Would it help if I pulled a few strings and got you into a specialist in Twikkii Island or Pleasantview?” Ulyssa asked, immediately sparking a hateful look from her little brother.

“I’ve told you before that I don’t need Maura’s money or you waltzing back into Arkhelios to jeer at us commoners,” Jorah spat. Ulyssa couldn’t remember a time when soft spoken Jorah lashed out like this. This had clearly been an issue for some time now. “I’m the Durant heir now; you can’t just walk back in here and be in charge again. I’ll handle my fertility. You need to focus on your own mess. Stop taking the daughter you were given for granted. Do you know what we’d do for a daughter of our own? She’s going to need you when she’s older, especially with Lucy for a mother.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” Ulyssa sighed, looking defeated. “I’m trying, Jorah. I’ll try harder. I know both Dad and Hunter had their difficulties at first, but they seem to be comfortable with each other now for the most part. I just...don’t feel it. That spark I feel for Theo isn’t even there. I thought it was supposed to be this magical moment of realization where everything just fell into place, but actually meeting her? It didn’t feel like anything.”

Jorah paused, watching his sister’s expression carefully. He could usually tell if she was lying to him. She’d never been able to lie about breaking one of his toys, or when she copied off his schoolwork even though she was in a higher grade. He was reasonably certain that his sister was being sincere.

“We’ll work this out,” Jorah promised as he engulfed Ulyssa in a quick hug. “I’ll help you. Who could be better at dealing with both Lucy and you? We’ll try something else. A smaller group? Meeting a few times a month? Something’s going to change, I know it.”

“And if you do need me to find a better doctor than Adam or cover some of the costs of whatever procedure you might need, then I’ll help you,” Ulyssa replied sincerely. “It’s only fair for your help with Lucy.”

Jorah rolled his eyes but didn’t complain like he had before. They weren’t going to need any fancy doctors, but if that promise was what it took to get his sister to take in an interest in her daughter, then it would be worth it.

“Deal.”

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #Ulyssa Durant #Jorah Durant #sim: noelle helios #sim: Mark Mishra #sims 2 pictures

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

When the knock on the door finally came, it wasn’t Roman or Abe waiting for Jorah.

“Tennyson?” he asked curiously, seeing the hoard of toddlers at the man’s feet. “Where’s Roman? He always brings the kids.”

Tennyson shrugged.

“Lucy told me that he had a doctor’s appointment and to ‘get off my ass and do something to earn a place in her house’, so here I am.”

Jorah winced as Tennyson gestured angry air quotes to mock Lucy. That certainly sounded like his best friend. Lucy had taken the Rivales house by storm and she wasn’t even married yet. It was Valerian’s opinion that she was the reason Emilia didn’t want to move home, either because she didn’t want to be around Lucy, or because she was pleased with the iron fist Lucy ruled over her family with, but didn’t want to live under it. Either way, Tennyson did what Lucy told him to do and Jorah couldn’t fault him for that. He too did his best not to anger his friend.

“Well, it’s nice to see you,” Jorah said politely. “Thank you for bringing the toddlers.”

“Oh, I have a stray kid for you too,” Tennyson replied, gesturing to someone to step closer to the door. “Apparently Roman promised him some community service hours or something. I was just told to bring him.”

A tall teenager shyly moved past Tennyson and smiled at Jorah. He craned his head to see who was in the house, and immediately fell to his knees in a bow that looked incredibly rehearsed.

“Your Highness,” he said respectfully, ignoring Jorah completely. “My name is Mark and I’m here to volunteer to look after the children of our small community. Community service is a passion of mine and these kids are the precious future of Arkhelios who need to be protected. Thank you for your interest in our community. Please let me know if there is anything I can assist you with while you visit.”

Maura paused for moment, clearly taken aback by this overly passionate teen.

“How much of that speech did Roman write?” she asked kindly, watching the teen react to her guess. “It’s okay. You recited it well. It was very moving.”

She shared a bemused look with her wife, who was also unsurprised to learn the author of the brief speech.

“I asked him for some advice,” Mark confessed. “I want to do something important when I get older and he said that you might be able to help. Maybe you have a position for me somewhere, or have some advice?”

“You’re Adam and Darcy’s son, right?” Ulyssa asked, and Mark nodded enthusiastically. “Give me some time, Mark. I think we can find something for a hard worker like you to do.”

She leaned closer to her bewildered wife.

“He’s Roman’s cousin. One of the more normal Bellamys. I’ll talk to Roman later, but he seems like a good kid. I’m sure we can find something for him to help us with.”

Maura nodded her approval.

“Young man, you can interview for a position with me by demonstrating your dedication to raising the future citizens of Arkhelios,” she said. “Show me your passion for public service and I’ll see what I can find for you.”

“Yes!” Mark exclaimed excitedly, then realized that he’d been too eager. “I mean, yes, thank you. I will.”

In the excitement of Mark’s speech, Valerian managed to escape to the nearest hallway where he could compose himself. Jorah wasn’t far behind him.

“Hey, Val, it’s okay,” he murmured while rubbing his husband’s back. “Things are okay. Everyone’s focused on the princesses; we’re too boring to notice. We’ll get through this.”

“I’m glad it’s not Roman who came,” Valerian replied, still not moving from his position against the wall. “You should have married him.”

‘Trust me, I tried,” Jorah joked, stroking his husband’s hair softly. “Roman’s not the guy for me though. I’d much rather have you. You’re smart and funny and you always know what to say to make me feel better. Roman could never measure up to you.”

“Look at how many kids he has,” Valerian groaned. “It’s all so easy for him. Your sister too. She doesn’t even want her kid, and she’s already planning on more with her wife. We’ve been trying for months now, and we couldn’t even keep the one pregnancy we managed to have. What are we doing wrong? If you had married Roman, you’d have the house filled with kids by now. It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Jorah agreed quietly. “It’ll happen for us, we just have to keep trying. Adam said this might take a while, but it can happen. We have options and we’re going to work with them.”

“Your grandmother wants little Durant heirs. She hasn’t exactly been subtle about it.”

“Forget about my grandmother,” Jorah replied, sighing heavily. “She can always bother Cindra to replace me, but I know Cindra. She’s not going to put up with the demands of being a family heir. She’s a lot like Nathan in that way. The Helios family is going to be a mess once he gets his hands on it. We’ll figure this out. It just might take a little time.”

Mark had grown up in a house filled with children of varying ages, so keeping an eye on a small group of toddlers was nothing. He expertly entertained them, and worked with them on nursery rhymes that his parents had taught him. Maura didn’t have a job for him that required looking after children, but she’d still been impressed with his patience and dedication. She assumed that Roman was only trying to help out a family member by pulling some strings, and not making a statement about why there were no children in her own home. If there was a sinister reason for this impromptu job interview, she couldn’t figure it out.

What on earth could she find for a young teenager in a completely different country to do though? It had been Roman’s scheme to begin with, she would just tell him that she approved of his candidate and for him to figure something out for her to approve of later. Honestly, that man must think that she had all the free time in the world. She’d have to send him a copy of her full schedule one day to remind him of the complexity of royal life. His duties as Adrian’s husband had been difficult enough for him; he had no idea of what being the crown princess entailed.

At lest her brief time spent in Arkhelios gave her the opportunity to spend time with her cousin’s children. Adrian and his immediate family had been mourned at every family dinner they’d held since their deaths. Maura’s mother seemed quieter since her brother died, though she would never admit it to her daughter. If death could come for the young and the innocent in their family, it could come swiftly to any one of them. The queen hadn’t said much about the loss of her grandson and his family, but there had been enough pointed looks shared with Maura that she couldn’t ignore. Maura was married now and if one branch of their family tree had been severed, Maura had better get a start on growing her own to compensate.

“You look so much like your father,” Maura whispered, tickling Luciana softly. “He’d be so proud of you. You and your sister will become beautiful duchesses when you grow up, I know it. Just be sure to give your dad hell when you’re older; he deserves it.”

Jorah returned to the living room just in time to watch his sister pick up her daughter. Ulyssa had been milling around the room, delaying the inevitable for several minutes. Now that Valerian was composing himself in their room, Jorah’s full attention could be given to his sister.

He always loved being Ulyssa’s right hand sibling, and supporting her through the ups and downs of her complicated life, but for the first time in his life he was in need of help. It would be nice to have Ulyssa wonder why he and his husband were so quiet and always leaving to compose themselves so that they didn’t bring the mood of the room down. Just once, Jorah wished that he could be the one who had the sympathies of Arkhelios. People like Lucy, Roman and Ulyssa were the shining stars lighting Arkhelios and he was just Jorah. The best he could hope for was to attach himself to someone important, just like Abe did with Roman and his sister. Completely on his own, Abe was just as dull as Jorah was. Maybe when his father died and Jorah took full control of their family, he could carve out a place in Arkhelios for him and Valerian.

“She looks like Lucy,” Ulyssa remarked, staring at every inch of Noelle to find a resemblance to herself. “I don’t think she looks like me at all.”

“I think she looks a lot like you when you were a baby,” Jorah replied coolly, letting his feelings colour his voice. “She’s a little kid, I’m sure her face will change as she ages and maybe the resemblance will be stronger. She’s still your kid. Lucy made that perfectly clear and I wouldn’t suggest that you challenge that idea if you want to make it home in one piece.”

“No, I believe you. It’s just...she looks like Lucy. I always pictured her as a little clone of me, I guess. This is Lucy’s daughter.”

Jorah rolled his eyes. If his sister mentioned Lucy’s name in complete bewilderment again, he was going to scream.

Yes, she looks like Lucy because you slept with Lucy. It’s not rocket science. Just come out and say that you don’t want her in your life because she looks like her mom. I’m sick of coddling you when you’re my older sister. Go back to your perfect life and leave me and Lucy to deal with your mess.

“She seems pretty smart,” Ulyssa remarked, trying to run through the same nursery rhyme as Mark. “She might have my passion for music with a wail like that.”

Ulyssa stared into the eyes of this little girl who was supposed to be her daughter. None of the sappy feelings Jorah always talked about or the protectiveness Roman always felt for Theo seemed to happen. She stared and she stared and nothing sparked in her like she’d always imagined it would. Was it because Ulyssa had missed her birth and early life and the parental connection had just never formed? Ulyssa saw nothing of herself in this toddler, just Lucy’s eyes and nose and smile. This was Lucy’s daughter, not hers.

Ulyssa shot a nervous glance at her brother, who was currently glaring daggers at her. Could he tell that she was desperately faking her enthusiasm? This made her a bad person, didn’t it? Maura didn’t seem to think so, but then maybe she’d only told her wife that it was okay to feel nothing because Maura assumed she’d love Noelle enough to take home with them immediately. People like Kamalani didn’t love their children. People like her mother cut their kids out of their lives.

Oh my god, I’m just like my mother! Jorah can see right through me, he knows I’m like her! I’m a terrible person! Who doesn’t immediately love their own kid? Don’t start hyperventilating or he’ll say something about this. He won’t stop looking at me! Fuck off already, Jorah!

On the floor beside her, Ulyssa’s phone buzzed loudly, indicating that she had a text message to read. She caught the name of the sender before the screen went dark once more.

It’s from Roman! What are the chances that he’ll have some emergency that I have to go solve for him? Maybe this “doctor’s appointment” is really code for demonic danger. I should call him back immediately.

“Oh, I have to call Roman back,” she lied, standing and subconsciously putting as much distance as she could between her and her daughter. “He has that doctor’s appointment, remember? This could be important.”

Ulyssa was gone from the room before Jorah could even ask a follow up question. He sighed helplessly, looking at his niece on the floor. It was definitely looking like he could tell Lucy not to worry about a custody battle in the future.

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #Ulyssa Durant #Jorah Durant #sim: noelle helios #sim: Maura Siew #sim: Mark Mishra

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

“So you want me to try to uncover your dad’s past? Grandma usually used the cards to see the future, but I can try, I guess.”

Roman Bellamy was sitting in the Rivales house, talking to one of his least favourite people about a subject he didn’t care about. That favour he owed her hadn’t come cheap.

“About his past, about this mysterious half-sister, whatever we can find out,” Kaeileen confirmed. “I really don’t want another Zane incident to happen to anyone else. In a community this small, it’s good to know who someone’s genetic family is.” She paused for a moment. “I’d like to help my dad if I can. There’s more to this story that he’s not telling me, and I feel bad for him. Maybe we can get this woman to come back and they can start over with their daughter.”

“That’s surprisingly charitable for you,” Roman replied.

“Can you help me or not? Otherwise, I’m going to find the most humiliating, reckless favour I can, and insist that you do it in your underwear in the middle of town.”

“Oh no, I’m not honouring a vague favour I owe you,” Roman said sarcastically. “It‘s not like we had a binding contract or anything, I’m sure your fiancee can explain why I don’t need to care about anything you threaten me with.”

“It’s funny that you should mention contracts,” Kaeileen shot back, eyeing Roman with a look she hoped was threatening. “Lucy was just talking the other day about you being barred from making an official deal for what, two years? Three? Five?”

“That’s none of your business!” Roman snapped, only realizing once he’d spoken the words that he’d overplayed his hand. He took a calming deep breath. “I’m sure Lucy was mistaken. It’s my understanding that some things might be more malleable than she thinks.”

“Does Abe know this?” Kaeileen asked, already knowing the answer, but hoping to be able to read his reaction. He wasn’t about to give her that.

“Does Abe know what?” he asked innocently. “That cases get thrown out or reviewed all the time? Probably. I’ll be sure to go ask him when he gets home from work. It’s been so nice catching up with you, Kaeileen. Bye.”

“Okay, okay, truce,” she said, raising her arms in surrender. “I need answers more than I need to watch you squirm. Just...try not to hurt Abe too badly with whatever you’re planning. Lucy will kill you if you do.”

“She makes that pretty clear on a regular basis,” Roman confirmed. “I don’t owe her an explanation for every little thing I do, despite what she thinks.”

Roman watched Keiki walk past them out of the corner of his eye. She seemed like a well adjusted girl, all things considered, aside from the fact that she utterly loathed his son for no reason. Roman couldn’t put his finger on what exactly he didn’t like about this mysterious girl, but he understood Kaeileen’s reluctance to just blindly accept her as a sibling.

“Okay, he conceded, “let me go get my cards. I’ll give it a try.”

When Roman returned with his tarot cards, he also brought along his daughters to play with Noelle. Abe was at work, and Theo school, and while Ironman was a good babysitter, there was no substitute for them to have real social interactions with kids their age. Poor Noelle could probably use some friends, considering how little she saw of her mother.

Kaeileen had never seen a tarot deck up close before, or anything else Malika had owned really. Roman kept babbling about crystals and spells, all of which seemed like things a tarot card reader would also use. Roman really was taking after his grandmother.

“I’m kind of getting the hang of all of the ways to interpret the cards,” he warned. “I’ve been right a bunch of times, but it takes practice, and a strong connection to the cards.”

“I remember your grandmother doing readings for us a million years ago,” Kaeileen mused, staring at the stack of cards that would hopefully give her some answers. “Tea leaf reading too, if I remember right. It’s nice that you’re carrying on her traditions. She’d probably be very happy to see you connecting with something she loved.”

Roman tried to suppress the warmth he felt rushing to his face over the idea of his grandmother being proud of him. He wasn’t entirely successful.

“So, uh, think of a question you want answered,” he stammered, caught off guard by his own unresolved feelings for his family. “You can say it out loud or just think it. Once you do, shuffle the deck.”

“I’d like to know who Keiki’s mother is,” she decided, starting her shuffle. “Who was she? Does my dad have a chance at reuniting with her and being happy?”

“One question,” Roman scolded, taking the cards and laying them out before them. He turned over the first couple of cards and frowned. “Shuffle again and think of one question. This reading is confused.”

Kaeileen did as she was told and then handed the deck back to Roman.

“Better?”

It wasn’t any better, but Roman didn’t know how to fix things. These were the same cards he’d pulled this morning when he read for himself.

“The ace of cups reversed. An insecurity in a relationship, things don’t go exactly how you want them to,” he read, placing down cards with hesitation. “Seven of swords, and the devil right after it. Something is being hidden. Some form of deception is at play. The three of swords, you feel guilt for betraying someone, or someone has betrayed you maybe?”

“Those are aren’t answers Roman, they’re guesses,” Kaeileen said skeptically. “Your grandmother just knew the meanings instantly and they weren’t so generic.”

Rolling his eyes and swearing under his breath, Roman flipped the next card.

“The empress,” he breathed, looking somewhat horrified at these results.

“What’s the big deal?” Kaeileen asked, looking bored. “Something else generic? Maybe we should get fortune cookies instead.”

“Kaeileen, you’ve just shuffled twice now, and each time, the same cards come up in the same position,” Roman stated, staring at the cards with worry. “I did a reading for myself this morning and the same cards appeared, just like this. I’m going to go stand in the hall for a moment. Shuffle the deck again and ask one simple question. Maybe I’m influencing the cards somehow.”

Roman left to go check on the twins and get the toddlers a snack. When he returned to Kaeileen, she looked as worried as Roman felt.

“So?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure that he already knew the answer.

“Do you have duplicates in this deck?” Kaeileen asked.

“No, you can check for yourself, but there are no doubles. So I guess I’m not the problem then. We’re connected somehow.”

“Connected how exactly?” Kaeileen demanded. “Don’t say any of that crap you tell Abe. We’re not in love, or have a deal or whatever else you two go on about.”

“I’d rather die than convince myself that I’m in love with you,” Roman sneered, looking offended at the suggestion. “Our paths are connected somehow, that’s all. We’re looking for the same answer. An answer we’ll probably have to search for together.”

Kaeileen looked a little more hopeful with this explanation, while Roman grimaced.

“Working together? That’s all I was hoping for,” she said with a smile.

Roman purposely ignored the grin on Kaeileen’s face. Now he really had a problem on his hands.

The base meanings of the tarot cards were a guideline only. There was nothing he could do with just rattling off the meanings of each card and its position. The real clarity that Malika had come to rely on was found only with practice, and becoming finely attuned to what each card spoke to you. That was part of why getting his grandmother’s deck had been so important to him. He had memories of those cards, of the images on them, and the small creases made in some of the corners where Roman had bent them as a bored child. He could remember the pleased look on his grandmother’s face when he identified all of the major arcana together for the first time. He couldn’t forget the feeling of watching the death card pop up again and again when he tried to read his and Abe’s future as a teen. Of how the cards didn’t see Theo in his future all the time he had been held hostage by his family.

He knew these cards. He’d lived with them. He’d grown up with them. They were his grandmother’s, but who knew how old they really were. Malika often told him that reading cards was a family tradition. Maybe his great-grandmother had once held these cards in her hands too. They spoke to him just like they spoke to his ancestors. While Kaeileen saw their message as being as vague as a fortune cookie, he could see more. A pattern called out to him. A pattern he couldn’t accept. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe.

The same image came to him over and over, locked in his brain like a screensaver that had frozen in place. Abe was in trouble. Abe struggled on the verge of death. The empress card dropped in a pool of blood. Him standing with his daughters at Adrian’s grave. Him and Theo standing in the rain over Abe’s. Just one of many prophetic nightmares.

“I have to go!” Roman practically shouted, standing quickly to his feet. He looked nauseous and horrified and lost. In all of their years together, Kaeileen had never seen Roman like this.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Let me help you, Roman. What is it?”

Roman snapped his fingers and the cards lifted themselves off the table, flew into the air and deposited themselves back in their ornately carved box. It was a shame that he couldn’t enjoy the astonishment on Kaeileen’s face. He’d been practicing that trick for a while now, even if it was just grade school level magic.

He ran outside, his chest heaving trying to force air into his lungs. It didn’t feel like it was working. His mind raced, trying to figure out his next steps while his lungs burned for oxygen.

“Roman!” Kaeileen called, racing towards him. “What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

Nightmares were just dreams. Dreams didn’t actually happen. Cards don’t always tell of a future that is set in stone.

“Can you call Ironman to come get the twins? I have to go,” Roman asked, still hyperventilating and terrified. “I...I have to go.”

“I’m calling Abe. He’ll know what to do to calm you down. He can help.”

“Don’t call Abe!” Roman shouted. “He can’t help. He just started this job, and he can’t just walk away from it to come here to do nothing! I-I have to go!”

“Go where?” Kaeileen demanded as Roman vanished into smoke before her eyes. This was concerning. Roman didn’t usually just leave his kids behind for someone he didn’t trust to watch for several hours. Lucy was going to be livid when she heard about this drama, but Kaeileen would calm her down. The only person who needed to have an opinion about Roman’s dramatic exit was Abe. If he was really going to marry Roman, he deserved to know how Roman was acting. Maybe he was the only one who could break down the giant barriers Roman had erected around himself.

After checking in on the happy group of toddlers, Kaeileen sat back down at the table and began a text to Abe.

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #Kaeileen Rivales #roman bellamy #Keiki Yoxall #sim: noelle helios #sim: Luciana Bellamy #sim: Adrienne Bellamy

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

The Durant household was even busier than usual as the final semester of university began counting down. Lucy had been consulting with both Yvette and Launce Durant about how to proceed with her legal education, and Elaine had insisted on accompanying her daughter. Most nights Yvette and Lucy huddled together at the dining room table, surrounded by Arkhelios legal papers, while Launce made the odd comment every hour or so, and then left to rejoin Elaine in the living room. Noelle also came with them, but never because Lucy wanted her to. Lucy was oddly determined to keep her daughter away from the Durant house, but Launce had a young daughter close enough to her age, and the Rivales twins living with him, so why not bring her along with them? Truthfully, Elaine suspected there were entire days when Lucy forgot that she even had a daughter. Unlike Abe, Lucy seemed to be content with leaving her child with Elaine and Ironman for long periods of time so that she could “study”. Abe had learned to make Theo a priority in his life despite getting off to a bit of a rocky start with parenting, and Elaine could only hope that Lucy would follow suit soon.

It wasn’t easy to be a grandparent, and Elaine made sure to mention this as often as she could while sitting with Launce. He’d understand soon enough when Ulyssa or Jorah had kids. it was nice complaining to Launce again, just like she’d done as a teenager when they’d had too much homework, or her father was being too hard on her. He listened now just as patiently as he used to back then.

Yvette was ecstatic to find someone interested in following in her footsteps, and gave Lucy every tip she could remember about navigating Arkhelio’s legal system. Lucy was going to be graduating with her bachelors degree soon and now had further decisions to make about her future. If she wanted to practice law in somewhere giant and archaic like Pleasantview, she would need to apply to a law school there to study further. If she wanted to stay in Arkhelios to practice, she could skip law school and take a short certification program, as Arkhelios had very few laws in place to study. Judging by the shocking number of deaths in the past few years that most people now just brushed aside, even the laws that were in place seemed to be simple guidelines only. Pleasantview law would have minimum sentencing guidelines, or criteria for judging the severity of a crime, along with any precedents set with that law. Arkhelios law never wanted to infringe on a citizen’s freedom, so even the most heinous murder could be hotly debated and punished with a slap on the wrist. Their own founder had been murdered in cold blood in a public place and most residents seemed content to simply blame Kamalani and forget that the whole thing happened.

Even with some slight maternal neglect, Noelle was turning out to be a happy, well adjusted toddler. She had won over the Rivales twins in a matter of minutes, and Theo absolutely adored her. She was a lot less mischievous than her cousin, and if anything, Elaine had noticed a sharp decline in Theo’s usual tantrums since she’d been babysitting the two of them together.

The only downside that Lucy could find with learning from the lawyers in the Durant family was that they were members of the same family as Ulyssa. Granted, Ulyssa wasn’t in Arkhelios often, but the few times that Lucy had crossed paths with her had been awkward. Ulyssa usually put on a forced smile, and started talking about inane things like the weather while Lucy did her best to pretend that she was talking to a stranger and not the secret mother of her child. Ulyssa looked happy, and Lucy was certain that she was happy, and Noelle was doing just fine with only one mother in her life. Everyone was happy.

Ulyssa was all too happy to leave whenever Lucy was around, considering that Lucy was now beginning to cultivate a reputation that rivaled Roman’s as a teen. She was competent, and smart, but more aggressive and self absorbed than usual. Learning how to present arguments in court had begun colouring her everyday conversations, and Ulyssa was somehow always her first target to attack whenever she was near Lucy.

“Were we ever that young?” Elaine laughed, reaching for Launce’s hand without thought. They often sat close together when their families gathered under one roof. They were both elders now; let Arkhelios gossip about them. Elaine didn’t care.

“She’s a lot like her mother,” Launce replied with a smirk. “Feisty, and stubborn. She’s going to change Arkhelios, or burn it down trying.”

“I don’t think Emilia has ever approved of anyone her children have brought home with them before,” Elaine said. “This may be a Rivales family first.”

“I’m not certain that bullying Ulyssa away from her own family home is the most prudent choice for the family,” Emilia scolded, and Lucy rolled her eyes. “She is about to marry royalty, and even if she weren’t, she would be a strong candidate to be the Durant family heir. I’m not sure that you want-”

“Oh don’t worry,” Lucy interrupted. “I know exactly what I want going forward. I have big plans for our family. The Rivales family will be safe with Kaeileen and I heading it, we don’t need to tip toe around someone who’s barely in Arkhelios anymore.”

Emilia couldn’t decide if she admired this young woman or if she wanted to slap her for her condescending tone. She had ambition though, which none of the Rivales children had ever shown before, outside of Pia’s desperate need to have her family’s approval. Kaeileen seemed to be coming out of her shell with Lucy challenging her, which was exactly what Emilia had always wanted from her granddaughter. Lucy was what her dear Giovanni would call a spitfire, who got things done, and Emilia knew that Lucy would have his blessing to help Kaeileen take the reigns of the family one day. She got along with the Bellamys, worked closely with the Durants, and embodied the same Helios spirit as her mother. In many ways, Emilia couldn’t have arranged a more perfect match for her heir to marry.

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #lucy chun #elaine helios #Launce Durant #ulyssa durant #emilia rivales #sim: noelle helios

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios University

Roman closed his eyes, while Abe dug through the boxes still piled in Roman’s room.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy before,” Abe noted, looking at a stuffed turtle.

Roman kissed Abe’s neck absentmindedly, his head still flooded with feelings. For once, the pull towards Abe was silent and probably would be for some unknown amount of time. Had the last time it restarted because they were arguing, or because a silent timer flipped back on? Either way, Roman was thoroughly happy to have a clear head for however long it lasted. Once the demonologists had an answer, maybe he could feel like this all the time.

“I think that’s something Wanda bought for Theo,” he answered. “I don’t think it was ever mine.”

”So, uh, you’re feeling more clearheaded, right? It’s not just me?” Abe turned to face Roman, searching his face for clues as to how he felt.

Roman nodded and kissed Abe for the first time in a long time just because he wanted to, and not because he needed to.

“Yeah, just like last time,” he confirmed. “Until Lucy barged in on us anyway.”

“Do you feel like you have an answer about how you feel about me?” Abe asked. “No pressure or anything. Just since we’re both thinking more rationally now.”

Roman thought about it, and hugged Abe closer to him.

“Well, I think that-”

“It’s Lucy! Lucy’s in labour! She’s having a baby in the hall downstairs, you have to come!”

“Lucy?” Abe repeated with shock. “Lucy’s pregnant?”

That precious clarity started to evaporate from Abe’s mind, and the same wanton pulling towards Roman descended on him once more. Beside him, Roman groaned with frustration.

“You too?” Abe asked, already knowing the answer. Roman nodded, and stood up to make his unhappiness clear.

“Who the hell are you to come barging in unannounced to someone’s bedroom?” he demanded. “We were clearly busy and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“But Lucy’s actually having a baby, right?” Abe added. “That’s actually happening?”

“I know you,” Roman accused, staring angrily at the woman who’d interrupted them. “I’d know you anywhere. What a surprise to see you here snooping on me and Abe. I guess even dying can’t give you some tact.”

Abe was torn between the drama of Roman screaming at a mystery woman, and the drama of his sister giving birth downstairs to a baby no one had been expecting. Both were extremely tempting.

“Maybe you can yell at her downstairs,” Abe suggested. “You know, so we can also check on Lucy?”

Roman gave the red eyed woman the angriest glare Abe had ever seen from Roman, which was pretty impressive considering how many people he did glare at everyday.

“We’ll go check on Lucy,” he decided. “She’s not worth our time. I’ll talk to her later.”

The woman looked saddened by this choice, but not surprised.

“I’ll talk to you anytime you want,” she said dejectedly. “I just thought you’d want to know about Lucy, since no one else wanted to come up to tell you.”

Roman sighed, but followed Abe down the stairs in his underwear. They weren’t fooling anyone in Arkhelios, so why bother changing clothes? Everyone apparently knew what they’d been up to.

The hallway was a busy mess of people, noise and towels. Most of Arkhhelios stood in shock at this unexpected drama, never once guessing that Lucy would steal the party like this.

“Abe! You’re about as dressed as I figured you’d be,” she joked, gritting her teeth in pain.

Adam was currently helping Lucy through her contractions as best he could, while Wanda, Hunter and Elaine surrounded her for moral support.

“Lucy?” Abe said cautiously, and his sister looked at him gratefully.

Everyone turned to look at the two men who’d arrived late and barely dressed. Abe could feel every single eye judging him and Roman, but that didn’t matter. His sister was having a baby; who cared what people thought of him?

There were only two people who weren’t watching either Lucy or Abe. Nathan and Nickolas continued playing video games, happy to ignore Elaine’s other two children.

“Abe, get over here and hold your sister’s hand!” Elaine commanded, and Abe instantly obeyed.

Roman was having flashbacks to Theo’s birth, where he had been in Abe’s position, holding his hand and being sworn at profusely. If that had been bad with just Theo, how bad was having twins going to be?

Not too long after Abe’s arrival, Lucy gave birth to a baby girl. The excitement had long been stolen from the party, and once everyone got a look at the newest member of Arkhelios, people started drifting out the door to head home. Lucy’s dress was ruined, so Wanda gladly lent her a housecoat to wear while she recovered upstairs. Monty was also curious to see the crying infant, though he kept his distance.

“So again, I’m going to ask about the other parent involved here,” Elaine stated plainly. “We need to contact them. It’s only fair that they know they have a daughter.”

Lucy shook her head adamantly.

“I told you, I don’t know,” she lied. “I slept with a lot of people, and I have no idea of when I actually got pregnant.”

“How many people are there potentially?” Elaine demanded. “Are there any that look like her?”

“Mom, it’s a baby, they all look the same at this point,” Abe interrupted. “You can’t just interrogate every person in the area with black hair and and brown eyes. They might not even have brown eyes, Lucy could have given her those.”

“A rough idea then?” Elaine practically begged. “I already have Abe being caught red handed with a married duke, I don’t need the stress of not having another parent involved in raising my granddaughter.”

“Roman’s getting divorced,” Abe announced. “It doesn’t matter if people see us together, he’s going to be single soon.”

Elaine rubbed her temples, fighting the urge to slap some sense into her children.

“Soon is not now,” she sighed. “Never trust a man’s promise when he wants something from you. At the very least, you’re going to end up as a tabloid headline in a very public divorce. Who would want to hire you? Who else would want to date you? You’ll be the other man to an entire country of people, and even more gossiped about than you are now. Please think about this before people outside of Arkhelios start to know.”

Abe hadn’t really thought about that. He knew that Roman wouldn’t abandon him like his mother feared, but look at how many people had been gossiping about him and Roman just at the party. He closed his eyes and could still feel the pounding in his brain urging him to go find Roman. The need was so urgent, he could hardly breathe, and Roman was just downstairs packing up the extra food. How bad could it get if Roman was stuck in Twikkii Island for the duration of the divorce? How devastating could it be if Roman spent months wrapping things up with Adrian, and cared for their twins until they were old enough to transport between countries?

Abe took Lucy’s daughter from her and let her cuteness take his mind off of his problems. Maybe he would have to start talking to these so called demon experts himself. He wasn’t a genius, but even he could see that something was wrong with the deal they’d made. That was the only way he and Roman were connected, aside from Theo. At least if he could regulate whatever curse had befallen him, people might stop gossiping about him and Roman.

#sims 2 #arkhelios #arkhelios university #lucy chun #Roman Bellamy #Abe Chun #elaine helios #sim: noelle helios