Chapter 2.6: The pirates' rebuttal

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Celine, my niece, is growing so quickly. The more time passes the more I see the resemblance to my brother Milo. I think she likes me, every I go visit my brother she wants to tell me all the things she did in kindergarten and what their cats do.

She is probably our best indicator of how time is flying, between our jobs and the preparations for the wedding both me and Hermes are busier than ever. 

Yet, apparently, someone thinks that we don't have enough things to worry about. It happened in the midst of an evening like many others, I was returning back home from the hospital as usual when I saw an old spaceship approaching at high speed towards me. 


I didn't have the time for doing anything before those idiots abducted me.
For all brainwaves, what the heck are they doing? Haven't they noticed I'm an alien too and that I have a black hole generator in the basement, and so that they don't need to throw me in their old teleporting machine to get me to Sixam?



???: (hesitant) Hi Luna, it's been a long time! I heard of you and Hermes, congr...

Luna: Are you one of those insane pirates? By bringing a spaceship in my neighbourhood you only risk getting noticed by humans, there were a thousand other ways to contact me!
???: ...
Luna: And was it you the one who abducted my brother some years ago? Why?
???: ... That was a funny story, in short we took the wrong person, you know. But c'mon Luna, I know you're mad, but you really don't recognize me? C'mon, once you considered me as one of your best friends!


It took me a while to recognize her, starting from her voice and only then her appearance. So much time passed since those compulsory training there on Sixam we were forced to follow as teens, and afterwards I've only seen her wearing a completely different disguise. 


Luna: (astonished) Ivy, what are you doing up here? Are you really one of those Sixam pirates, that's why you disappeared?
Ivy: Well, it's a long story, but if we brought you here it's just to tell you, so ...

And so, one detail at a time, she told me her whole story. Everything suddenly made a lot more sense... Did the Elders' Council really reach that point?


A few hours later, Ivy brought me back home, where Hermes was waiting for me with a very concerned expression on his face. I felt so sad instead, I had to tell him what I found out, but it was so, so horrible...


Luna: ... it was Ivy, she is one of those pirates on Sixam. And also the others, they are aliens born on the Earth just like us.
Hermes: (incredulous) What? What reason would they have to protest against us moving on the Earth, then?
Luna: It's complicated, but they are not against it for the reasons we thought, their message was interrupted before we could understand what they really meant. In reality, they just want to give everyone a place to stay.
Hermes: But that's exactly what we're already doing now, isn't it?

I shook my head, everything I had discovered had put so much anger and sadness on me. But I was absolutely sure it was the truth, Ivy had let me read her mind.


Luna: Have you ever heard of couples between humans and aliens, and their children?
Hermes: They say they can't have children, if I'm not mistaken.
Luna: Well, that's a lie. The Elders' Council is hiding it from us just to maintain our secret coexistence with humans possible. It's so, so horrible...

Hermes appeared visibly confused and didn't know what to answer anymore. All I could do was to keep explaining to him what I had found out, but it was so, so difficult...

Luna: Do you still remember that me, you and Ivy used to go out together a lot, when we were younger?
Hermes: Of course, I do.
Luna: ... And do you remember the crush she had for that human she met at the bar, once?
Hermes: Vaguely, yes.
Luna: Well, apparently the story has gotten more serious than we expected. And, unexpectantly, he and Ivy had a baby. He is with her on Sixam, she's hiding him. I've never seen anyone like this before...

To explain to him what I meant, I used telepathy to show him what I saw on Sixam, something so unbelievable that I couldn't describe it with words only.




Hermes: ... he looks like a human being. But he has completely purple skin.
Luna: Above all, he is unable to disguise himself. At all. 
Hermes: ...
Luna: (distressed) The Elders' Council considers children like him a threat to our life here on Earth, because if any of them was let free humans would immediately discover us. This is why they decided to make up that lie, to say that hybrids like him could not be born. In reality, they just want to hide their existence from everyone, many were taken under custody and no one knows what happened to them. The pirates went to Sixam to avoid the government and the army, and to hide those children.
Hermes: ...


Hermes: It's horrible... But why did they tell you all these things? 
Luna: They are organizing a coup d'etat , they want to get all the people they can to their side before this happens. So that Ivy knows us, she wanted to explain it to one of us in person.
Hermes: ... what do they plan to do, in the hypothesis they manage to overthrow the Elders' Council? Do they have a plan, at least?
Luna: It's a bit extreme, but... They want to stop hiding from humans and fooling them with these disguises. And they want the Earth to become a place where everyone can live showing themselves for who they really are, be they aliens, humans or hybrids.
Hermes: (thoughtful) I see...

Hermes had not doubted my words for a moment, he had confirmed it by reading my thoughts with telepathy. He seemed to be completely horrified by those revelations but, as usual, he was already thinking about the implications, and what to do.

Hermes: ... I can't publish anything like that in our newspaper, we are controlled directly by the Elders' Council. But we have other ways to circulate information, as many aliens as possible need to be made aware, ASAP.

Needless to say, both me and Hermes had every intention to stop this terrifying discrimination against hybrid children and their families, and we were ready to take very drastic choices for helping them.

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The coup took place about two weeks later. The fall of the Elders' Council had sent into chaos the internal organization of the alien society and even more that of earthlings, who had just realized that a few million of the people who lived on Earth were actually aliens from a distant planet, who up to that point were hiding among them wearing a disguise concealing their characteristic colour ranging from green to violet.

The governing bodies couldn't do much about it, there are no laws forbidding to be aliens, and as long as we respected the same rules as the others they can't punish us. However, this did not lessen the fear that most humans showed toward us. We expected it, and that was exactly the reason why at first we preferred to disguise ourselves.

After the coup, many of our people decided to abandon their disguise and show their true appearance, for many it had been like an official stance of their opinions on the matter. Hermes and I also discussed a lot about what to do and how we wanted to face the situation. We talked about it for weeks, and made the decision just before a very important day for us.


We dressed up the cats, put on our ceremonial clothes and went to the city park, the wedding day had arrived.


Continuing to wear a disguise would undoubtedly have been easier, but it would also have been a great lie. Maybe now our relationships with humans will get more complicated, but to us this also seemed like the right thing to do.




???: Congratulations!
? ?: This is likely to be the first wedding between aliens since the coup, you could end the TV!


Noemi: I would very much like to say that I had already understood everything and that it was clear that there was something strange, but you seemed so normal!
Luna: Oh, well ...
Noemi: So you were really glowing, that time!

Noemi took it incredibly well, sometimes she seems a little surprised to see me with such a different appearance or to hear me speak in a slightly different voice, but in practice she treats me just like she did before. The more time passes, the more I like her.



Luna: So Celine, do you still recognize me? I'm Aunt Luna?

Celine stared at both Hermes and me with bewildered eyes for quite a while, she doesn't seem to understand that we can be the same Luna and Hermes with whom she usually talks. All in all, she seems amused by the novelty, though.


Hermes: You're glowing in green today.
Luna: You too.

And, for once, we didn't have to worry about it. We had never really noticed the weight of having to pretend to be human and maintain a believable disguise until now, it's such a relief to don't have to worry about it all the time and just be able to be ourselves.



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§HermioneSims§ corner:
I'm afraid to have disappointed all the people who were expecting elaborated hairstyles for the wedding day :P

MSSSC: Liquid luck


Hi everyone! Here is my entry for the MSSSC for March 2022. You can find the challenge details in the related blog entry and forum thread. The theme for this month is the word: lucky.
This month I decided to change the setting and to use one of my favourite saves, and the title is...


Liquid luck


This is the story of Charlotte, and of the quest to regain her lost fortune.


"Why am I so unlucky?" whispered Charlotte, demoralized. Even her friend George couldn't deny it anymore: she slippered in mud paddle hidden below some dry leaves, her spell had backfired on her setting her cape on fire and, Merlin's beard, she was even stuck by lighting while watching the last quidditch match. And this was just what happened to her in the last three days, how could she just continue to think it could be casual?

Noticing her mood, George tried to cheer her up by saying: "Maybe we could try to study some books, I can't believe that in the whole castle there isn't anything which can help you to find some luck!" 
And so they did.


In the following weeks, both Charlotte and George spent all their free time studying the tons of books stored all over their common room. It was a never ending work, where were they supposed to start when the definition of luck itself seemed so elusive? Yet they were very motivated to give it their all for the cause.


"I've asked the others, but they don't know how to help you, either" George said after twelve days of research, he still tried to sound cheerful but the tired note in his voice was very clear to Charlotte. Even more demoralized than before, all she managed to answer was: "Maybe I'm spreading my back luck also to the rest of you..."


"Here it is!", Charlotte suddenly cried excited, after more than one month of fruitless research. Her bad luck did not disappoint, the information they needed was written as a very small note in the last book they picked up from the huge libraries surrounding them. George, who until a second before was about to give up, was in complete disbelief, and only managed to ask her: "Wow, really? What is it?"


"It's a potion, the book calls it "felix felicis". It seems quite hard to prepare, but it does exactly what I need, liquid luck which I can drink whenever I need it!"

The plan seemed complex, so many things could go wrong, but that potion also sounded like the only solution to them. So they rolled up their sleeves, borrowed the ingredients they needed from their teacher reserves, and started sneaking into the potions' classroom at night to brew that potion.


"I'm a bit worried, this potion is supposed to pass through months of brewing. How can we hide it for so long?" George commented, just before starting to add the first ingredients to the boiling water. "We are going to bottle the intermediates and continue to brew them the following night, I guess.", answered Charlotte. So many things could go wrong, even without considering her bad luck, but she did not want to surrender before trying.


"Are you alright? These is something weird around your arm!", exclamated George, suddenly. Charlotte barely at the time to say:" It's nothing, I just have t..." when a very worrisome black smoke started to whirl from the caldrum.



"My face, what happened to my face?", asked Charlotte, in shock. But George did not answer, because he was stepping back from the caldrum as the smoke became more and more dark and menacing. Her bad luck was not satisfied yet, what else was supposed to happen to her?




"Ouch!"
Seeing Charlotte on the ground, George found enough courage to get closer and check on her. When she managed to mutter: "I think I need to go at the hospital wing...", demonstrating to still be conscious, he breathed a sigh of relief just before running out of the classroom, looking for help. 


It took  a few hours for the school nurse to heal Charlotte's main wounds, then she left her resting a bit as she had revise some old books, she claimed she hadn't seen anything like that in a while. 
When she returned back, she introduced herself with the most unexpected phrase Charlotte heard in a while:


"You've been very lucky, Miss Bennett". 

"What? It can't be, I'm the unluckiest student of the whole school! Look what happened to me just by brewing a potion for some hours!" snapped Charlotte, exasperated. 
Patientely, the school nurse sat next to her, to explain her what she had just found out.


"You've been very lucky at passing from the hospital ward tonight, who knows what would have happened if we let you around with that curse for any longer!" the school nurse said. Then, without further hesitation, she handed Charlotte an amber-coloured potion.

Charlotte was too exhausted to investigate further, so she just took that potion and swallowed it down to the last drop.


And that was the beginning of a new life for Charlotte.


"So it was a curse making you so unlucky? And it is completely gone, really?" asked George, skeptical, the first time the met again. "The nurse said so" answered Charlotte. "But we can try to test it".


"Well, winning a chess game without any weird interruptions you should be a quite good demonstration, you're right." commented George. Charlotte answered by nodding happily, before focusing again on the game.


"You see, I won! I won for real!" Charlotte said, jubilant. "You beat me bad, to be honest", admitted George. 


And so Charlotte was able to defeat that unlucky curse she caught who knows how much time earlier. Once again she was not loosing objects all the time, she could exercise her speels without fearing unexpected failures, fly on a broom without risking to be stuck by lightings and everything else. For everyone else this was just normal but, after so long, she finally felt again so lucky!

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20 pictures, 957 words

Note: all the settings were downloaded from the gallery. Most of the content was made from giuliabuilds (the whole castle) and sims1515 (the inner part of the common rooms and the potions classroom), while the hospital wing is from Dancingqueen1313. To avoid killing my computer I used different lots for different rooms, and it seems to be working quite well. 

Chapter 2.5: Surprises

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From Luna's diary

Maybe we should consider putting up a sign saying: "Beware the cat!" at the door, Mango keeps attacking our neighbours even when they just knock at our door asking for some sugar. Sometimes she can be really territorial... 


But this will be another day's problem, we have more urgent things to worry about: this morning we woke up to find leaking water from almost any sink and shower in the house. What could have caused it, a spike in water pressure? 



It wasn't a great start for the day, we barely had the time to repair everything before rushing to work, so we weren't able to investigate properly.

*Pretending nothing happened...*


All the aliens finally seem to be settling well, we hadn't to erase any memory because of questionable disguises for months. Both the official and the unofficial news haven't reported anything about those self-proclaimed pirates in about a year, and everyone seems to be doing their best for integrating among the earthlings. 

A lot of alien babies are also being born, some of them are children already, actually. This is seen as a great achievement for our people, considering that until one generation ago our genetic asset was not stable enough for reproducing without exploiting humans and pollinating them, which is how most of us were born. By integrating the earthlings' genome into ours, however, the new generation has acquired the ability to reproduce exactly as humans do, making abductions and pollination completely superfluous.

Despite this, however, official sources continue to say that we aliens and humans are still genetically too different to have children, and that thus we should ignore them. I have never focused on this topic, but I would really like to delve into it and find out the biological reason which could justify those conclusions...

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Returning home, I almost tripped into the next surprise of the day when walking up the stairs: Daisy just had two kittens! She seemed a bit slower than usual, but we were too busy to investigate and the long fur hid the rest.



I think they resemble a bit Milo's cat, Pedro, don't you agree, my dear diary? In either case, we have decided to keep the kitten on the right, Papaia, while the kitten on the left, Coco, will go to Milo, Noemi and Celine's place.

After having prepared a more comfortable spot for Daisy and her kittens, I heard Hermes returning back from his work. He surprised me a bit, he usually works until much later than this, but for sure I didn't complain.


Luna: (surprised) Are you cooking tonight?
Hermes: Well, I'm trying to. 


Luna: How is it?
Hermes: It could be better, probably.

Albeit his comment, I took a plate and sat at the other side of the table to have dinner together. We are both terrible at cooking and too often we just have a sandwich or a salad, so I found his attempt very sweet.


Luna: How was your workday?
Hermes: Bah, I was given a new assignment. Now I have to write about official announcements and integration statistics.
Luna: Is it as boring as the name would suggest?
Hermes: Maybe even worse... But that kind of information remains quite important, someone has to write about it.
Luna: ...

After saying so he returned to focus on his plate, with an even more thoughtful expression than usual. He almost seemed anxious about something, and I understood what was going through his head a few minutes later, when he finally decided to speak it out: 


Hermes: Luna, I would like to ask you something...



Hermes: will you marry me?

It is often difficult to understand what is going through Hermes's head, but deep down I should have expected it. Between us, he has always been the most romantic and the one who cares the most about traditions, after all.

We've known each other since we were teens and we started to fight for allowing the coexistence of humans and aliens, I could never imagine my life without him. How could I ever tell him no?


My dear diary, I suspect that many humans would not expect that an alien like me could ever write pages like this last one. The Elder's Council and their official news always draw a net line between us and the earthlings, but there really is such a substantial difference between us and them? Is our lifestyle and what we aspire for really so unlike what humans such as my brother Milo experience? The more time passes, the hardest it is for me to keep believing so...