Crawler Lane*A few days after her wedding, Opal was hit by an attack of nausea in the middle of a sculpting session.
Not just one, in fact: she'd barely dealt with one moodlet by throwing up when the next one hit. Soon, she found out what was causing it.
She told Morgan, who was astonished. (So was I. It took so many attempts to get Opal pregnant that I assumed the chimes weren't working – until suddenly they did. Given Morgan's age, that seems quite realistic.)
Once he'd got over his initial surprise, Morgan was delighted to be an expectant father. Opal, who was suffering from backache most of the time now she'd stopped being sick, was less enchanted with the whole pregnancy thing – especially since her husband's enthusiasm extended to reading pregnancy books but stopped short of practical help. Not even a backrub.
Morgan ran into Kevin the SimBot outside the gym. They chatted and Morgan discovered that his metallic son was now working at the salon as a tattoo artist.
Personally, I'd worry about a robot tattooist. He'd probably do a good job of the artwork but I can't see him having much sympathy with human pain. Morgan, on the other hand, immediately wished to celebrate the imminent arrival of his heir by getting a tattoo. They went off to the salon together – and he discovered that Carmen was also working as a tattooist. Maybe it's the latest thing in Lucky Palms – a robo-salon. I was rather hoping to find Kristy working there as well but, sadly, the stylist was human.
(The lighting's still not sorted out, despite your advice,
@Trip. It just seems to be a dark building.)
Carmen applied a small heart design to her creator's arm and he went home to show it off to an underwhelmed Opal, who sighed and returned to the studio. She spent most of her time there these days, either sculpting or chatting with her female in-laws. Unlike Morgan, they knew what pregnancy was really like.
When she went into labour late one night, Morgan just rolled over and went back to sleep – military working hours were early, after all. He needed his rest
. So Minnie drove Opal to the hospital.
Welcome to the dynasty, Ford.
Opal put her baby son in his cot and collapsed thankfully into bed. Morgan slept on, undisturbed. It was Robin who woke up and rushed to the nursery to give her new housemate a cuddle.
Ford had his first birthday…
…and turned out to have inherited the Lancaster hair
.
Morgan had made his heir some fancy new crafted toys but Ford determinedly ignored them in favour of the old-fashioned variety. So Morgan ignored him right back and divided his free time between the new home gym, his old favourite the dance studio and making everyone else look silly playing catch.
(Although VW is developing an enthusiasm for all things athletic and soon might be able to give as good as she gets.)
As usual, Minnie did most of the toddler training…
… and then Portia took her grandson to the library to introduce him to the world of books.
Robin made a masterpiece sculpture of little Ford and then, left to her own devices, wandered down to the dance studio for the first time. She'd only just walked to the centre of the dancefloor when she felt herself growing light.
She met the Reaper quite calmly. "No pillow-fighting this time, Grim. I'm ready to go. It's not as though this life's been all that wonderful anyway." And she shook his hand.
Rest in peace, dear Robin, and I'm deeply sorry. You deserved so much more.
Then it suddenly hit me: Robin was 93 – and the older immortals had eaten their last ambrosia around the time she'd aged up to elder. Were they all out of time as well? In a panic, I checked their age bars. It wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought but they were 88. Early the following morning, they gathered in the Ambrosia Room. It was chaotic. Everyone got in everyone else's way and Morgan ended up late for work – but finally they were all back at the start of elderhood. Phew!
Opal had her adult birthday while sculpting and, unsurprisingly, had a midlife crisis…
..and Ford blew out the candles on his second cake, helped by VW. (No idea why she had the honour of taking him to the cake – they must have been interacting when my attention was elsewhere.)
The cake-eating was nearly as disorganised as the ambrosia a couple of days earlier…
…but at last Ford, pleasantly full of birthday cake, was able to disentangle himself from his elderly relatives and find a dresser and mirror.
* The title is partly because Ford spent most of the chapter as a toddler but is also because the game feels interminably slow at the moment. It felt as though Morgan took forever to qualify for ambrosia even though he was actually the second-youngest immortal (narrowly beaten by Portia). I thought maybe it had taken longer in real-life time but, when I checked, Portia was by far the slowest. Morgan was second, but only took a couple of RL days longer than VW, who felt as though she'd finished quickly. It must just be my frustration at his lack of enthusiasm for continuing the dynasty: I genuinely wondered at times whether generation six would ever arrive.
