Letters Home, Year One and a Half

A year and a half after arriving in the new village
Narrated by Anyu z.Avira


Greetings to all the Sims back home. Glad to hear things are starting to improve over there and that at least one carrier pigeon managed to evade the cats. We're all doing pretty well over here and everyone was still breathing last time I checked, so Angel, no more nightmares, OK?

It's been quite a first year for us - Turi and Markal fell for each other pretty early on. Which is just as well, since he was the only available man in the camp who's not our cousin. Of course, then she caught him flirting with Lilac.

She wasn't happy. Never mind that Markal will flirt with anything that moves. Lilac and Turi fought for weeks over that... then a storm rolled in just as it looked like they were going to kill each other, a lightning bolt lit a tree in our singles' camp on fire and it immediately stopped raining. While we tried to put it out, one of the cats ran out of the village and didn't come back. Daniel said it was a sign from the spirits that things had gone far enough, and all four of us got three months of construction duty. Mean elder council. I was trying to keep the peace, just for the record.

Aunt S'Ahmisa slipped back into Nuidya life like she'd never been away. Her family took longer to adapt, but now you'd think none of them were born in Bridgeport. I'm not sure whether Zita will slip back into SimNation habits when she finds out her mother's been talking to Hestrie and Serendipity about her marrying Shansam, though.

Still, there is talk that S'Ahmisa and Shansam have taken the betrothal discussions a little too far. If it's true, the boy is fifteen kinds of crazy. He tried to kiss Li a few months ago (what is it with him and council elders?) and got two weeks' night watch at the food stores for his troubles.

Towards the end of last year, Lilac and Turi both found out they were pregnant. (My fault and Markal's respectively.) So we had a couple of very hastily arranged spearpoint weddings, as soon as Markal and I could scrabble together half-decent bride prices, that is. I have to say the ladies aren't particularly happy about being anta pal ni (or in-laws, whatever that means, as Asken called it).

And let me tell you, I want to know who came up with the bright idea that men have to fish up half the ocean for their wife's family before the wedding. We spent so much time picking "fragrant" medicinal herbs that the cats followed us around like lovesick ducklings for a week. On the bright side, it did help us finally find the missing one.

Although he wouldn't come anywhere near our hut after the fire, and sticks around Daniel most of the time now.

Speaking of which: Last week, Kim announced that she was pregnant, which made three in the camp at once. Daniel is the father of the baby. But only if Zareb isn't. She's not sure. Honestly, I never thought she had it in her - it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?

Daniel and Zareb seem to have done a lot of bonding lately though. They joke about the situation a lot, and they're always at each other's huts for one reason or another.

I don't think they'll still be such good buddies if Kim has a green baby. I think that would be the only way we'd know for sure whose it was.

Turi and Markal got married a week ago. It went surprisingly smoothly considering it was so close to the end of both Turi and Lilac's pregnancies. In other words, Lilac managed to hold off giving birth until after the ceremony was over and everyone had gone home.

Let's just say our new hut needed some speedy extending. Our daughters, Vedrafe and Karatla, and their brothers Ganyalis and Kifsina, are happily driving us crazy from one sunrise to the next. I never thought I'd envy Turi with her new twins, Kitira and Aralata. I'm amazed Serendipity can whip up headache remedies as fast as she does.

I've sent an assortment of leafy things with this letter. As I said earlier, the cats love them. Maybe they'll distract them away from the pigeon lofts.

Take care everyone.
- Anyu

********
VT says: I got so caught up in playing the first six rotations that I forgot to take many pictures. I thought this letter, and a few of the pictures I did take, would be a good way to showcase the highlights of the first year and a half. I might try a few more like this, since the population is still probably too small for full updates.
And no, I'm not going anywhere.