The Jewels of Appaloosa Plains -- An Immortal Dynasty (Chapter Eight + End)

[peach]

I just started reading this dynasty and I LOVE your writing style! Emerald is gorgeous and Stone has my heart. I'm really excited to see where this story goes

Thank you mpart!! I've put a decent amount of effort into revising some of these chapters, so it means a lot to know they're enjoyable to read.

[peach]

CHAPTER-FIVE-AND-A-HALF

Contrary to what the lack of posts might’ve led you to believe, I’ve actually been playing the Stones nearly every day the last two weeks. However, all those hours have been dedicated to a pretty big project, which I’ve documented in this mini-update.

The family realized they were rapidly outgrowing their home; Turquoise’s Child birthday was coming up, and they didn’t have a bedroom to put her in. In general, really, they just needed more space. This shot of their cluttered backyard—featuring an unpainted portrait studio built in a moment of lighting-induced frustration—pretty much sums up how they've been living.



Booker and Emerald knew this day would come, and have been saving up funds in preparation for it. Through sales of Emerald’s Glow Orbs (and money bags) and Booker’s paintings, the two put away roughly §250,000. They decided it was finally time to use that money, and take the house from a quaint, 2-bedroom country home…



To a contemporary mansion fit for a dynasty!



I’m a very slow and meticulous builder, and achieving a dramatic change like this was not a fast process. Completing the house involved translating a real-life blueprint into Sims dimensions, test building and tweaking the layout in another save file, downloading some store content to make things look exactly how I wanted, and finally, chipping away at the design piece-by-piece over many sessions in the real Immortal Dynasty file—but the final result is undoubtedly worth it. I’m really proud of the house, so I wanted to give a tour!

I'll start with an overhead of the first floor:



The layout is very circular. The foyer and great room are both two stories; a small catwalk between them connects to the upstairs hallway.







This is the sitting area to the right of the front door/foyer:



I hate to start on a low note, but I’m really not a fan of the decorating at all. It’s actually the last room I finished, and I was feeling very uninspired at the time; it will definitely get redone sometime in the future, but I’m too burnt out to fix it at the moment, so this is how it stands now.

To the left of the front door is a small reading room, which I like much better.





It gives access to the art studio. The door will remain locked to Emerald and all future Immortals other than Fluorite.







Back in the foyer, walk underneath the catwalk, and you reach the great room…





…which branches off into a hallway leading to two bedrooms.



To the right, Booker and Emerald’s:



To the left, Fluorite’s:



Booker and Emerald’s room is really lovely. It has its own bathroom and private access to the back deck.





As of right now, Fluorite’s bedroom is a little plainer, but all that empty wall space will soon be filled with paintings and drawings she decides to keep.





That glass door by her bed is a private entrance to the art studio. She also has her own bathroom, with a cool feature—an open shower, thanks to HugeLunatic on Mod The Sims.



I’m bumping up against the picture limit for this post, so this mini-update will be continued shortly in another.

[peach]

CHAPTER FIVE-AND-THREE-QUARTERS

Let's go back to the great room, which also connects to the dining room…





…And that connects to the kitchen, one of my favorite spaces in the whole house.





I struggled with it for awhile before I bought the Bayside store set and had a breakthrough with the new items. It came together really nicely, and I'm excited for the family to use it.

The kitchen’s other archway goes to the mudroom, which is how Sims can get into the house through the garage. It's nothing remarkable, but this little spot has a realism that makes me smile.



The mudroom leads to the laundry room…





…And finally to a small annex of the foyer, which has access to a basic downstairs bathroom, before we’re back where we started.

Going up the stairs leads to a much simpler second floor:



The hallway is a bit bare right now, but I'm hoping photos and other Sim creations can decorate it as time goes on. As of now, only three rooms are finished; the rest of the empty rooms will serve as bedrooms and bathrooms for future generations. Here’s an overhead of the small wing that’s currently in use:



On the far left is the children’s bedroom, occupied by Turquoise. When she becomes a Teen, she’ll move out and get her own space. It has a Jack-and-Jill inspired bathroom that connects to the playroom.











The chemistry set is for her to explore her genius trait, but it means the room has to be locked to the immortals. When Turquoise grows up, it’ll probably be replaced with other skill items for the next generation.

The garage and basement are the last two indoor spaces.



I used an awesome tutorial from the site’s building guide in order to attach the garage to the foundation of the house. The only car right now is Booker’s, but I'll eventually have to somehow expand it to fit more. That tiny room with the small windows at the top is the entrance to the basement, which is separate from the main house. I have a whole plan that includes a museum and more bedrooms for future generations, but for now, it’s just one big room where the family can store collectibles and other valuables so they aren’t spilling out onto the lawn.



All that's left is the backyard. There’s a deck, an outdoor eating area, a pool…









And a huge playground for the Stone children and their friends.



Finally, there’s Emerald’s fenced-in garden, tucked away in the back left corner of the lot. It has a shed for her gardening supplies.



She got rid of all of her SwiftGro stations but one. They randomly spawn seeds that were always cluttering up the old backyard, and I got paranoid that having multiple going would eventually start to cause lag—and God forbid that, right? In my giant house, with hundreds of items and probably dozens of places for Sims to get tangled in routing issues, it will surely be a few seeds that slow the game down.

That's about it for the house! I’m extremely proud of how it came out—it’s one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done, but my creative batteries are thoroughly drained. I’m really looking forward to getting back into gameplay. Another (real) update should be coming soon!

[mpart]

I’m at an absolute loss about how beautiful that house is. The color scheme, the landscaping, the accent walls, the layout of the house... it makes me all want to cry happy tears.  It's so stunning. You did a wonderful job.

[peach]

CHAPTER SIX

Being a teenager is boring when all your friends have already aged up. Fluorite spent the last days before her birthday pittling away at the easel, but her heart wasn’t into it. Deandre hadn’t spoken to her once since he graduated—not even a phone call—which put a twinge of anxiety in her stomach.

At least Dakota hadn’t forgotten she existed. He was pretty busy exploring life as a Young Adult, but still said hello whenever she dropped by the Fox house to hang out with Alonso. They managed to squeeze in a nice conversation when she ran into him at the beach.



He was veering away from the high school “bad boy” image that had first attracted Fluorite: his frosted tips were growing out, and he’d become a Vegetarian. She liked him just the same, though—maybe even more with the extra height and new muscles.

Though the house renovations provided ample space for a party, the family instead decided to throw the girls’ dual birthday celebration at Dog's Day Town Plaza. They packed up two Inferno cakes and the stereo, and headed over. Booker was in charge of the guest list, and he appeared to have gotten a bit overzealous. It seemed like every Sim in Appaloosa Plains showed up.



Fluorite was first to her cake.



She chose Renaissance Sim as her Lifetime Wish, with plans to master painting, sculpting, and photography. Her final trait—joining Artistic, Friendly, Easily Impressed, and Good—is Nurturing. Anyone who saw how natural she was with her baby sister was unsurprised.

Next up was little Turquoise.



I wanted to give her Dramatic, but it’s only available to Teens and above, so I went for Good instead. While she is a bit high-maintenance, I do think she has a good heart—it’s all that influence from her sister. Her first act as a big kid was digging into a huge slice of cake.



Now a full five-traited adult, Fluorite was eager to talk with Deandre at the party. She told herself their distance was just a product of being in two different phases of life—literally—but now, things could go back to normal. Right?

But he left before the cake was cut with only a rushed goodbye, and that twinge in Fluorite’s stomach deepened into the weight of disappointment. Dakota and Turquoise managed to lift her spirits a little, but Fluorite couldn’t quite quiet the questions circling in the back of her mind.





Nonetheless, she's blossomed into quite the beautiful young woman. At graduation, Fluorite looked stunning in her cap and gown.



Her classmates voted her Most Artistic, and her whole family came to see her give a speech as Valedictorian. True to her superlative, Fluorite adores her new art studio; she spends most of her waking hours creating, and is particularly fond of the drafting table. Late at night, she often wakes up with an idea for a sketch and reaches for a fresh sheet of paper without even changing out of her pajamas.



Turquoise similarly enjoys holing herself up in the playroom and experimenting with her chemistry set. She likes blasting her favorite station, R&B, as she works. Her mother and father are always pounding on the door and telling her to turn the music down.



When something goes a bit amiss, a scream from those infamous lungs sends the whole household bounding up the stairs—but Turquoise always swears she’s fine afterwards, and begs Booker and Emerald not to take away the set (which they have half a mind to do, what with the number of times she ends up singed).



She’s a funny little girl. There aren’t many other children in her class, so she spends quite a bit of her time by herself, but doesn’t seem to mind. She likes searching the sky with her telescope…



She’s nearly always got her nose in a book…



And she doesn’t need a friend to have fun on the playground—not even on the see-saw.





Booker has been working on his handiness skill, and dedicated some time to upgrading the sprinklers in Emerald’s garden.



Meanwhile, Emerald had an uncharacteristically gleeful romp through the spray.



Before long, it was time for their birthdays, too. Booker wanted to make use of the pool for his party, so Emerald grilled up some of his favorite dish, hot dogs, for his outdoor bash.







It might’ve taken a trip to the wardrobe, but Booker was determined to be no less stylish as an Elder.



Emerald spent her last day on Adult legs running around Appaloosa Plains with her Collection Helper.



Never one for fanfare or dilly-dallying, she opted to age up on the morning of her Elder birthday with only a small family party.





I actually like to leave some gray in my Elder Sims’ hair, but the highlights in Emerald’s hairstyle made it look strange when I tried, so she got restored to her full natural color.



She got a wish to grow Life Fruit right after aging up. Don’t worry, Emerald—you’re not going anywhere for a while.

[peach]

I’m at an absolute loss about how beautiful that house is. The color scheme, the landscaping, the accent walls, the layout of the house... it makes me all want to cry happy tears.  It's so stunning, you did a wonderful job.

Mpart, you are too kind!! Thank you so much for this comment. It made my day.

As far as the layout goes, I can't take too much credit. I did modify it a little, but it was mostly inspired by the floor plan I based the house off of. I received a PM asking for the original blueprint--for anyone else reading this thread who wants to take a peek, it's here.



Above is my translation of the house into Sims dimensions, which the final build remained mostly faithful to!

[Beks]

Okay, um, the house is amazing. It looks so professional and realistic! I always have such a hard time with layouts. It's like when I go into build mode, I suddenly lose all understanding of what shapes are and how they fit together. You did a beautiful job! (Also, I loved the yard before the renovation and how there were just kind of bits of clutter everywhere. That is 100% how my lots always look and it was nice to see someone else doing the same thing lol)

I am particularly excited to see who Fluorite's spouse is going to be. I'm a big Dakota Fox fan, but Fluorite seems like the type to follow her heart and not necessarily care who has the funkiest hair color. I love how in-depth her character is already! (And Turquoise's, too.)

[CeresIn]

I love the house! So much work is in there. Like Beks I have ploblems with the layouts even when I like decorating the rooms. I'm going to check the link for blueprints.

As for the story, I like how each sim has its own distinctive personality and how they evolve over time. Great job.

[peach]

Hello everyone! I apologize for my absence.

The Stone Immortal Dynasty attempt is not dead! Far from it. I started a new job and haven’t had as much time for playing/writing recently, but the family is doing well. In game, I am a bit (maybe a few weeks) ahead of where the last chapters left off, but I’m planning on catching up with updates soon.

In the meantime, here are a few screenshots from the Stones’ museum, which I’ve been working on recently:







What’s this? Three illuminated rooms? (With one blurred out for dramatic effect?) Yes—it seems like, in the end, Fluorite Stone was able to choose a husband after all… Stay tuned.

[peach]

Thank you for the comments, @Beks and @CeresIn! I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you two. 

Okay, um, the house is amazing. It looks so professional and realistic! I always have such a hard time with layouts. It's like when I go into build mode, I suddenly lose all understanding of what shapes are and how they fit together. You did a beautiful job! (Also, I loved the yard before the renovation and how there were just kind of bits of clutter everywhere. That is 100% how my lots always look and it was nice to see someone else doing the same thing lol)

I am particularly excited to see who Fluorite's spouse is going to be. I'm a big Dakota Fox fan, but Fluorite seems like the type to follow her heart and not necessarily care who has the funkiest hair color. I love how in-depth her character is already! (And Turquoise's, too.)

Thank you so much, Beks!! I always prefer a Townie spouse for my heir, but, silly enough, I feel so guilty whenever my Sims are rolling wishes for one thing/relationship and I push them in another direction. Part of the reason Turquoise was born--I like to let them follow their hearts, and I hate saying no unless it's absolutely necessary! (Fun fact: Emerald actually rolled a wish for another baby after having Turquoise, as in, like, four days before she turned Elder, and I did finally have to turn her down there.)

I love the house! So much work is in there. Like Beks I have ploblems with the layouts even when I like decorating the rooms. I'm going to check the link for blueprints.

As for the story, I like how each sim has its own distinctive personality and how they evolve over time. Great job.

Thank you, CeresIn!! I'm very much the same way when it comes to building/decorating, and blueprints are my secret weapon. I appreciate your kind words about the story.

[peach]

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Life Fruit had been planted, ripened, and plucked. The Deathfish had been scouted, lured, and snagged. Finally, the recipe had been studied and carefully memorized.



With all her requirements complete—and the ingredients waiting in the fridge—Emerald Stone was ready to prepare Ambrosia.



She banished the rest of the family to their respective rooms and shuttered the dogs outside, leaving them to scratch and whine at the door. Nobody was to even think about coming into the kitchen until she was done. Old age had thinned her patience, and Emerald’s Grumpy side was easier than ever to provoke. But this was more than characteristic grouchiness. Her limbs were tingling with more adrenaline than she’d felt in years—maybe the most she’d felt in her entire life—and she was tense, jittery, raw.



Her hands shook slightly as she did her work: cleaning and neatly fileting the Deathfish, slicing the Life Fruit into thick, sweet chunks and simmering them on the stove. In all Emerald’s efforts to prepare for the task of crafting Ambrosia, many aromas—good and bad—had filled the Stones’ kitchen. But none quite like this.

She hardly breathed as the dish shimmered in the oven. When the timer rang, quickly—as though it would disappear if she waited too long—she brought a single, steaming plate to the table and stared down at it, her heart pounding in her chest. The culmination of all her efforts. This was it.

She lifted a quivering forkful to her lips, chewed, and swallowed.



The decadent savoriness of the Deathfish overwhelmed her, chased by the tangy sweetness of the Life Fruit. It was indescribable. She ate quickly, bite after bite after bite, her stomach churning with fear and anticipation.



She was finished before she realized it. An uncomfortable, feverish feeling suddenly spread through Emerald as she swallowed the last morsels: a sheen of sweat dampened her upper lip, her underarms, and head throbbed in the first pulses of a headache. For a moment, she wondered if she had done something wrong, and hurried to the kitchen door, welcoming the breeze that rushed in as she flung it open.





But after a few moments sitting outside, the feeling subsided into a pleasant warmth, even lightness, as though the fever had purged all the things that had begun to ail her. She arched her back, which usually ached from the years spent bent over her plants—nothing. She flexed her fingers, which had grown too weak to dig out the roots of weeds—strong as ever. She rose to her feet squinted at the foliage of her Money Trees: her eyes could pick out the black line of each curlique Simoleon sign, an ability she hadn’t even realized she’d lost until now.

Emerald Stone’s body had been renewed, and all of time stretched before her in one vast, infinite plane, hers to cultivate as she saw fit.

She was immortal.



The family had more to celebrate not long thereafter. It was time for Turquoise’s Teen birthday, and everyone gathered in the kitchen.



She blossomed into a breathtaking young lady, and became a bit too aware of it for her own good.



She’s a little full of herself, a little Dramatic these days. But at her age, who isn’t?

Turquoise kept up with her studies in Logic, but also joined the Drama club at school: she relishes in feeling all eyes on her. Having grown into her looks a bit more, she became a hit with the boys—much like Fluorite once was—and giggled over her flings with her older sister.



Fluorite, however, was not having nearly as much luck when it came to love. She continued to hone her own skills in the art studio, but while her fingers were occupied by a pencil or paintbrush, her mind wandered elsewhere.



Her gaze often strayed to the cell phone she kept within reach of the desk. Its ringer was cranked to maximum volume, just in case—no, just in preparation for when Deandre called. But his radio silence continued as the days passed.



Dakota kept her company in Deandre’s absence. He invited her to the art museum or the movies, and they always had a good time—maybe even flirted a little—but things kept fizzling out. Probably because he always killed the moment by subtly trying to Mooch off her.





Come on, dude.

Nonetheless, it helped keep her mind off Deandre, at least when they were together. But when she was alone, Fluorite couldn't help but wonder about once-best friend.

The change in their relationship had been abrupt and unexpected. One moment, they were spending every waking moment together: hanging out at the park, eating dinner with Fluorite’s family, playing with the dogs and baby Turquoise. Then, all of the sudden, Deandre had moved onto an adult life of his own. He’d gotten a new job, new friends, even whispers of a new girlfriend—and amongst everything new, there didn’t seem to be a place for Fluorite.

It was an unforeseen shift. Sure, Fluorite toyed around with him a little in high school. She flirted with other guys, she dodged his attempts to talk about their feelings. But in the end, she always assumed it would be the two of them that made it through: Fluorite and Deandre, Best Friends Forever… and maybe more, someday. Or maybe it was just a stupid teenage daydream.



While consigning some paintings one afternoon, a red shirt flashed in the corner of her eye. Fluorite turned and cornered him before he could disappear.



All at once, her patience evaporated, and her loneliness boiled over the surface—she demanded to know why he hadn’t called, hadn’t visited, hadn’t made even a moment for her.



At first, Deandre was defensive. But then, with a sigh, he relented.

“I’m sorry, Fluorite. I know I haven’t been there for you. It’s just… I don’t know… I guess I think what your family is doing is kind of weird.”

She bristled.





“Not weird! Okay, weird was the wrong word. Maybe… constrictive, is better. And in high school, I thought I was okay with that. Really. I pictured being your husband, as stupid as that sounds, and being under all these rules, and I thought—great! That’s fine. I’d be happy to do it, to be with her. But then we got older, and… I don’t know.”



“There’s a lot I want to do with my life, and I don’t know if it fits with what you want to do with yours. Like… what if I want to have more than one kid, but we can’t, because you need to keep space in the household? Or what if I want to see the world, but we have to stay here to keep file size down? Jeez, I mean—what if I just want to get a tattoo, or drink soy milk, or keep a special seed in my inventory, for crying out loud?”



“I’m sorry, Fluorite… I know I didn’t do this the right way. I didn’t know a good way to tell you, at the time. But I guess I’m telling you now: I just don’t think I can give all that up for you.”

Fluorite could see the truth in what he said, but it didn’t make her feel any less heartbroken. She stormed out of the consignment store and headed home to take her feelings out on the easel. As if it wasn’t enough, though, in the midst of the her emotional storm, tragedy suddenly decided to strike.





Stone’s Elder birthday had slipped past, unnoticed, in the early days of the Dynasty. All the while, his clock had been silently ticking.

He lived a good life, over 70 days—an eternity for a dog—and achieved much during it. He mastered the hunting skill, brought home dozens of gems, and acquired over 30,000 Lifetime Happiness Points. And, of course, he was a faithful companion to his Sims, in particular Emerald, who was his Best Friend Forever until the day he died. She rushed in seconds too late to say goodbye, and the pain of it was written all over her face.



Rest in Peace, Stone Stone: the first death of what will be many.

[Beks]

Yay, a new chapter! I love that you focused so much on the preparation of ambrosia, in addition to the eating of it. The cooking details were a really nice touch. And your writing throughout this is so beautiful!

I think I smell a Fox in Fluorite's future...and I'm not mad about it. Poor Fluorite, though. Imagine, a guy dumping her just in case he felt the urge to carry a special seed in his inventory sometime in the future. The nerve!

[mpart]

That museum looks amazing and I agree with Beks... poor Fluorite. She deserves better! Deandre doesn't know what he is missing. I mean, what are the chances of him getting his lifetime wish complete when he's not in a dynasty house? Zero. He could have lived a fulfilling life as a dynasty spouse but noooo he had to give it up all for soy milk and special seeds.

[peach]

CHAPTER EIGHT

Artist's block.

It had hovered on the edges of Fluorite's consciousness ever since she first picked up a paintbrush, like the monsters she used to check for underneath her bed. She lived in silent fear of it: the thought of what might happen to her, and her family, and to the Stone dynasty itself, if she one day stared at a blank canvas and no longer remembered how to coax it to life.

She'd caught glimpses of it before—a hulking shadow in her periphery, a claw or forked tail in the crack of her closet door. After those instances, she’d spend a week on sketches that all ended up in the garbage, or paint and re-paint a canvas until it was sagging with paint and worthless. But those little flashes always passed, the monster retreating back into the darkness.

Until one day—the day that first forkful of ambrosia crossed her mother’s lips, sending the weight of the dynasty careening down onto Fluorite’s shoulders. That day, Fluorite opened her bedroom door and found the monster crouched on top of her bed, grinning.

She tried everything to get rid of it. Swapping her paintbrush for a pencil, to see if the switch in mediums would switch on her imagination; nothing. Cycling through all the stations on the radio—Chinese, Latin, Turquoise's R&B—in the hopes that the melodies would flow through her ears and out her brush; nope, nada. Painting early in the morning. Painting in the middle of the night. She even snuck out her old Multitab and gained a level in writing, just to see if it would get her creative juices going—but Emerald put a prompt end to that plan, snatching back Multitab and locking it deep in her gardening shed.



Sometimes Fluorite would get going with a piece. A hazy vision would appear in her mind; a whisper of her old flow coming back to her. She’d concentrate on keeping her hand from quivering, on not letting her heart pound away, terrified of scaring the flighty dove of inspiration back into the sky. It would go on like that for forty-five minutes, or an hour, maybe two—and then she’d step back to look at her creation, only to realize that it was wrong, all wrong, every stroke, every color, every inch needed to be redone, needed to be scrapped.

All Fluorite could think about, really, was the dynasty. This new responsibility had clogged every creative artery in her mind, starving her of inspiration, demanding her attention. Every time she picked up a palette, she could only picture how many more canvases she needed to finish and dry and lug to the consignment store, how many blocks of clay and wood and ice were left to sculpt, how many hours of photography Tabcasts she had left to muddle through—not to mention how she'd need to find the time to make six friendships, purchase her Lifetime Rewards, and transform the dusty, bramble-ridden Adventure Landing Beach, which she’d recently signed the deed to, into a flourishing property.

And, of course, there was the head-spinning business of marrying a husband and producing an heir.

One evening, after all her usual attempts to lure inspiration back into the light had failed, she tried something new—out of desperation, or maybe just sheer exhaustion. Fluorite rifled through her dresser drawers, looking for something, anything different. Her fingers discovered a sheer top from high school and, with relish, a skimpy skirt of Turquoise’s that the maid must have accidentally sorted into her laundry. She shimmied her outfit on and slipped out the front door into the night.



The Watering Hole was quiet this time of the week; its few patrons hardly glanced up as the saloon door swung closed behind Fluorite. She flagged down the bartender and then slid into an empty table with her drink, listening to the low murmur of conversation and the quiet beeps and plinks of the arcade machines that glowed softly behind her.

The rough, cracked-leather cushion of the chair grazed the backs of her thighs, and Fluorite blushed. Turquoise’s denim skirt ended a few inches above her knees—a very different sensation than her usual paint-splattered jeans, but was what she wanted. She wanted different; maybe different could help her shed the worries that had been crawling all over her skin like tiny black ants. And a drink or two wouldn’t hurt, either.



The Party Popper slid down her throat in a swallow of sweetness. She was headed to the bar for another when she heard his voice.

“Wow. Nice skirt.”



Fluorite’s neck and chest grew warm—but the Party Popper took that feeling, dumped it in a tin shaker, and rocked it between the ice cubes until it flowed back into her body, cold and bold and sparkling.

“Thanks. Wanna borrow it sometime?”

Dakota chuckled, and that heat spread through Fluorite’s whole body. It felt good to make him laugh—it reminded her of the first time she really got to talk to him, at the Rustler’s Den, when he was still the cool boy a few grades ahead of her who she wanted nothing more in the world than to impress. Even now, both graduated, that feeling hadn’t quite subsided.

"So." He glanced down at her drink. "The elusive Fluorite Stone has time to drown her sorrows, but not to pick up my calls. I see how it is."

Fluorite flushed again, this time for a different reason: in her quest to cure her creative block, her phone had piled up with unanswered notifications.

"I'm sorry about that. I..."

She tried to find the words, and when her tongue failed, Dakota spoke again.

“Hey. I was kidding.” His tone was a little softer this time. “Why don't you put whatever you were going to get on my tab, and then you can come back and tell me all about these sorrows.”



He grinned at her when she returned with a tray and two drinks.

“So…” Dakota took his glass by the stem. “…how’d you manage to free yourself from the studio?” He lifted the drink to his nose and sniffed. “Mmm. Refreshing.”



“Not free. ‘Escaped,’ is the term I would use.” She tried a sip of her own. It was harsh and minty, and opened her sinuses.

"Escaped?"

"I'm not exactly dying to get back there. I have artist's block. Bad.” When he cocked his head to the side, she went on:

“I don't know how to explain it. I just can't paint anymore. Imagine... imagine a soda that somebody opened and forgot about, and left on the table overnight, and now it's flat. It's me. I'm that soda. That's how I feel.”

Maybe the Party Popper had had more of an effect on her than she thought. Or maybe it was that stupid podcast, Wright's Writes Rights Rites, Episode One: Unlocking the Metaphor.



Dakota didn't laugh at her, though. Instead, he nodded in classic Dakota fashion: that slow, sage bob of the head she recognized from high school, whenever their nascent political debates turned to postllamadist theory or simfective altruism. Back then, when he nodded at Fluorite, it always gave her a little thrill, because it meant she'd said something that resonated with him.

"Okay." He paused. "I get it. I get what you mean. So how do you get... re-carbonated?"

“I don't know. That's what I came here trying to figure out.”

"Who left you on the table?"

Now it was Fluorite's turn to tilt her head.

"With your metaphor—you’re a soda, right?" Dakota held an imaginary can in his free hand. "A soda that somebody let get flat. So, going off this metaphor, someone had to forget you on the table."

Fluorite took a long, slow drink, trying to wrangle her thoughts into a single-file line.

“Is it the—” He snapped his fingers. “—the, requirements? That's what they're called, right? Is that what's bothering you?"

“You've heard about those?” Her heart sped up. This conversation didn't go so well last time.

“The dynasty thing?" Dakota shrugged. "Sure. People talk. Not in a bad way. Well, mostly not in a bad way, and if it is in a bad way, then I stop listening.”

A sense of relief washed over Fluorite, one she hadn't even known she was waiting for. It was like Dakota squeezed the trigger: her thoughts suddenly arranged themselves in a perfect line and fired out of her mouth one-by-one-by-one, no need to even reload—



“It's the requirements. And my parents. And everything.” Fluorite threw her hands up. “Like, how am I supposed to do this without screwing it up? There are so many rules, so many things you have to accomplish. I remember, this one time, on my Teen birthday, I was out collecting space rocks, and my dad called me, screaming over the phone, because we had already cut it so close with my Toddler pieces, and he needed to paint my Child portrait, and if I didn't get home in time then the dynasty was over, because it has to be finished before you age up. Or—”

She pointed at Dakota. He leaned back a little.

“—in high school—I’m completing all these opportunities, right? I think I'm doing great. I’m thinking, at least one requirement is out of the way. Then I ask my mom for a ride to city hall, to drop off a pile of permission slips, and she loses it—loses it, because I've been doing school opportunities, and I'm supposed to be doing painting ones. So that's three or four opportunities our descendants might have needed that I've thrown out of contention, forever. And all of this is just going on and swirling in my head and Deandre, the one person I thought would understand me, the one person who was supposed to be by my side—”

Fluorite inhaled sharply; all the words suddenly stopped. Dakota gave that wise, slow nod again.

"Well. I guess we know who left you on the table.”



Fluorite ducked her head. She had done her best to suppress that memory, but the drinks freed it from the recesses of her mind, letting her and Deandre's last conversation play full and vivid in her thoughts. Embarrassment and hurt and anger rushed through her, all in tandem.

“What happened?” he prompted.

Fluorite sighed.

"I saw Deandre the other day," she began, hesitant. "The first time I’d seen him since my birthday. And he let me know what he thought of the whole dynasty thing. The whole, excuse me, constrictive dynasty thing.” The word tasted bitter on her tongue. “Apparently, the idea of being a part of my world is so terrible, he couldn’t even stand to be friends with me anymore."

“He said that?”

“Not exactly, I guess. But I kind of pieced together the last part.”

“Wow. Well... wow.” Dakota shook his head. He sat back, and started rubbing the grooves of a word someone had carved into the wooden table. Fluorite tried to read it, but couldn't make out what the letters spelled. Finally, he said, “I guess that tracks.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.” He glanced back up. “Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because he’s…”

“He’s what?” Fluorite replied quickly. Despite their fight, alliance to her old friend had bubbled to the surface, though it receded when she saw, by the look on his face, that Dakota didn’t mean anything bad. Instead, he gazed at Fluorite for a long moment, appearing to be studying her, or trying to piece something together. Under his eyes, that teenage-girl feeling bubbled up inside her again—she resisted the urge to adjust her skirt and smooth her braids.

“He’s… randomly generated.”

“What?”

“He’s not like me. He’s not guaranteed. All the stars and all the numbers had to align just right—” Dakota pinched an inch of air between his fingers and squinted at it. “—for him to exist. And they’ll probably never come together in that way again. He gets one shot.”

He shrugged, setting his emptied glass on a table.

“Me?" Dakota continued. "That’s a different story. Any time somebody has the whim to move to Appaloosa Plains, boom—I’m there again, as a toddler, another whole life ahead of me. I’m a Townie. I’m lucky. Not everybody gets that. So I see where he’s coming from, too—he has to make the most of the chance he’s got. But with said... well, I’ve got so many chances to live, I guess making a couple of sacrifices during this one wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. And, for the record, I would happily make those sacrifices.” He met Fluorite’s gaze steadily. “Even just to be your friend.”





He fell silent again, and the feeling of his eyes on her was almost overwhelming—almost. Another feeling rushed through her, so familiar and beautiful that, if she had been anywhere else in the world, she would have leapt into the air and shouted with joy: inspiration.

She wanted to run to the easel—but she also wanted to stay still, right there, in that moment, and plant herself in the middle of the Watering Hole with a canvas and a brush and her bottles of gauche, because she could picture then exactly how she would mix the color of Dakota's eyes, exactly the strokes she would use on the canvas’ rough surface to capture their shine, their warmth, their light.

She knew, when she leaned in towards him, that it had nothing to do with the Party Popper coursing through her veins.



“Well… thank God.”



“What?”

“I was scared, for a minute there, that you were going to take me up on the whole ‘just being your friend’ thing.”

A taxi brought them back to the Stones’ house. Fluorite held a finger to her lips as she led him to her bedroom.





***

When the sun came up, Emerald was none too happy to find Dakota Fox bumbling around her kitchen, unannounced, before any of her other family members had even woken up. She put him to work in her garden and made it clear, right away, that there was no such thing as freeloading in the Stone household.



His weeding skills must have won her over, though, because Emerald didn’t say anything when Dakota’s one-night stay turned into a few nights.



I even caught her baking cookies a day or two later—though she swore it was entirely coincidental, and not because they happen to be Dakota’s favorite food.

Dakota wasn’t employed, so he had all day to help Emerald gently pluck tomatoes off the vine, or bring Booker a tool as he crouched in front of the mechanical guts of the house's washer and dryer. It definitely helped him to earn their favor. Another thing earning their favor? His lifetime wish of Swimming in Cash, and his hankering to learn painting. He started joining Fluorite in the studio; it’s almost like he was built to be a dynasty spouse.



And it’s a good thing he warmed up to this lifestyle, because…

[peach]

SAD ENDINGS

Hi everyone. I'm disheartened to return with sad news, and to share that the Stone Dynasty has come to an unfortunate end.

I always intended on continuing the challenge and the accompanying story. As I shared with MrsFlynn in a private message a few months back, I'm a full-time university student, and during the school year, I just don't have as much freedom to play, or especially to write and edit, as I'd like (a sentiment I'm sure resonates with many others). Inspired by my exchange with MrsFlynn, however, I carved out a good chunk of catch-up chapter writing over my spring break, and had crafted a few updates to tide the thread over until summertime, when I intended on diving back in.

This plan unravelled two weeks ago, when, while on a trip to Las Vegas, my hotel room was broken into and ransacked. I had several thousand dollars of personal items stolen—including, most devastatingly, my laptop, which had all of the dynasty files (and my other personal files) on it. I had about a hundred Stone backups on the laptop itself, but didn't have the foresight to offload even one of them.

I am embarrassingly crushed about the loss of this save file. I am such a slow player, and I put so many hours into it—I had really developed an attachment to this family, their home, and the version of Appaloosa Plains they lived in. I’m so sad I won’t get to share so many moments in this thread, like Fluorite and Dakota’s wedding, and the birth of their daughter, Tanzanite; or Turquoise’s tenure as a secret agent, and the many torrid love affairs that ensued; or the family, especially Emerald, mourning and having to navigate their way through Booker’s death; or the exciting journey through Tanzanite’s childhood, culminating in a family vacation to France, where she was supposed to find love.

In a miraculous stroke of luck, this lone chapter uploaded itself to my iCloud, and I’m glad I can at least reveal how Fluorite's love triangle worked itself out before putting this story to rest. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to turn her romantic life into a believable story. Most of it is based in gameplay—Deandre really did start to neglect his relationship with Fluorite once he became a young adult, while Dakota autonomously called her up for several dates. This was a big surprise; for some reason, I always thought she was going to end up with Deandre, despite the fact that she never rolled wishes in either direction. Eventually, the clock started ticking and the wishes still weren’t coming, so I decided she ought to go for the suitor who was actually putting an effort in. It was a good choice—Fluorite and Dakota had a very wonderful life together.

I will hopefully be back with another Immortal Dynasty attempt soon. Until then, thank you again for reading and supporting my story. As disappointing of an ending as this is, it was a blast to play and turn into a story.