A Lot to Talk About, 133

VT says: Hi everyone! I'll be away for the month of June (again) but I wanted to get one more post up before then.

Since my last story post, the Pets & Apartment Life Sim Bin premades managed to slip into Kulo Seeri, and half the tribe left due to overcrowding, heading further north and establishing the village of Lluza.

Anyway... here, have an update. I won't be around to post any more until July, but I will be taking screenshots for future posts during what little Sim time I get. :)

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Lluza, early winter, 133

S'Ahmisa z.Ace is 54, Zita z.Ace is 26, Zade z.Ace is 19, Ganyalis z.Avei is 14, Caleb z.Ace is 6

Ganyalis was still adjusting to life in Lluza. He'd left his parents, his sister Vedrafe and his newborn triplet siblings back in Kulo Seeri, having to accompany his mentor to the new settlement to continue his training.

He didn't know why Zita still wanted him as an apprentice. Some shaman he'd make. After the sickness came to Teal Camp, after everyone started acting strangely and fighting all the time, he should have noticed the presence of a demon. But he hadn't. Not until Kifsina died. That was when it became obvious who the demon had possessed - Karatla, their other sister. Zita had tried her best to heal her, but even her magic hadn't been enough, and soon the sickness claimed Karatla's life as well.

He brought it up with Zita during one of their early morning fishing trips. "I keep expecting them both to come back - only I feel like Kifsina would just walk in like nothing ever happened, but Karatla... she'd probably rise from the grave and attack everyone."

"She wouldn't," Zita told him, "Karatla is in Yala [the spirit world] with the rest of our ancestors. What caused the sickness was a powerful demon, not your sister."

"And you better not forget which plants you need to use to..."

"Hey! I got one!" Ganyalis held his catch up...

...and slipped on some wet grass, dropping the fish back into the water.

When he got up again, Zita was grinning at him. "Good thing you didn't choose to spend your apprenticeship on a fishing boat after all!"
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The pair arrived back in the village around noon. Zita's son Caleb was outside their new home, playing with one of the cats. He barely noticed his mother and her apprentice walk past with a basket of fish.

Caleb had been complaining of back pain a lot lately, but it didn't seem to be bothering him as he waved a feathery stick around for the cats to chase

and picked them up to cuddle them.

Even Ritanwi, the ill-tempered elderly cat who'd lost her tail at some point in the past, didn't seem to mind that. He was just about the only Sim who could get away with holding her.

S'Ahmisa and Zade were also occupied, sitting in the shaman's workroom casting runes. Since leaving her ex-husband Markal, Zade was hoping to hear that there would be another relationship in her future, but from what Zita and Ganyalis could hear, there didn't seem to be any sign of one just yet.

So, with everyone else distracted, Zita suggested to Ganyalis that they made the apprenticeship official.

Ganyalis had thought Zita would never ask.

It had been a part of the shaman's initiation since Zita's own mentor, Daniel, was an apprentice, but she had never brought it up before now.

"There's something about it that... that's bothering you, isn't there?" Ganyalis asked her that evening. "Is it something to do with Caleb's father, or...?"

Seven years earlier, Zita had left Kulo Seeri on a visit to a small town in SimNation, hoping to pick up some new magical knowledge from its inhabitants. When she came home, she was pregnant and refused to mention anything that had happened there.

After a long silence, she started to explain.

"I loved him, Ganyalis," she said, "I really did. I'd trade all my powers for it to have worked out. But we both knew it never would, not when I had to return home."

"And he couldn't have come with you?"

"No... he wouldn't have been happy here. He was a gardener... that's someone who grows food," she added, noticing Ganyalis' expression change from confusion to shock. "Exactly. So even if he was willing to leave his home to come to Kulo Seeri with me, would the rest of the tribe have accepted him?"

Ganyalis nodded. "So you knew there was no future in it."

"Right." Suddenly Zita was smiling again. "So just this once, young man, you understand? Now go get some rest, we've got an initiation ceremony to prepare for."

(Easier said than done when a pair of Min Ra had taken over the only empty bed in the cabin. Adorable outtake ahoy!)