Luna: I was told you got A at the last school test, good job!
Orion: Well, it wasn't difficult.
Orion seems particularly in a good mood these days. He is doing well in school, I have not received any more notes from his teachers, and he has also stopped bickering with the other children at the park. His twin brother Leo, on the other hand, seems suspiciously quiet lately...
Leo: ... sure, nothing happened!
And, before I could ask him more, he sneaked away to his bedroom. I really don't understand, what's going on with him?
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From Leo's diary
Like every other day, today we went to play in the park right after school. We always play with the spaceship, it is Orion's favourite game and we always ended following him.
Orion: Space octopuses are attacking us, open fire! And we must avoid the meteorites, full engines!
Leo: Rudder to starboard!
Aster: Wait, wasn't it something pirates would say?
Orion: ...
Aster: So? Was it a pirates thing or not?
Aster was asking Orion, but he seemed too distracted to answer. He was just ignoring us, to focus on the other kids who had just arrived at the park.
Orion: ... wait a minute, I have to pee.
Aster and I exchanged a suspicious look, it was already the third time we saw that scene that week. Without saying anything, we just hid behind the spaceship and tried to see what he was doing.
Leo: (wispering) You see, it's as I told you! Orion entered the bathroom, and in a second that other kid came out!
Aster: (worried) You mean it's a disguise? But it's not legal, what do we do?
Leo: ...
Aster: Maybe we should tell it to dad and mom...
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From Luna's diary
Today at the hospital was a very hard day, we are in the middle of a flu epidemic and, this time, I got sick too.
Patient: Doctor, are you sure you're okay?
Luna: We are short-staffed, that's the best we can do right now.
When I got home I collapsed in bed from exhaustion, and Hermes seemed just as tired as I was. The children, on the other hand, were downstairs doing their homework and chatting to each other. Probably they didn't realise it, but from our bedroom we could hear them perfectly.
Orion: I found a very fun game, do you want to play it too the next time?
Leo: (mad) We know already what you're doing, are you crazy?
Orion: But ...
Leo: If you continue doing that we'll have to tell mom and dad too, you know?
Luna: (very tired) Tell us what?
At that point Leo and Aster didn't even try to cover their bother any longer, and just spilt out all the truth. I was stunned, did Orion really use a disguise at the park just for playing with the other kids? Was he crazy?
Luna: What were you thinking? If the police noticed you, they could have arrested you there, right on the spot! And the same would have happened to me and your dad, because you're still under our responsibility!
Orion: I'm not an idiot, it's so easy to hide! I just can't change my appearance in the middle of a street, even a fool would get it!
Luna: It doesn't matter, there are rules and they must be respected! So I forbid you to do it again, got it?
Orion: It's unfair, you and dad have spent whole years always in disguise and nothing happened, why doing the same just for playing with other kids at the park should be that different?
Luna: It is not at all the same situation, we have already explained it to you.
Orion: And I've already told you that's unfair!
I took a deep breath to try to calm down a bit. We tried our best to teach him, what went wrong? Maybe, before deciding what to do, I had to try to find it out.
Luna: Where did you get such a reckless idea from?
Orion: Celine told me, she wanted to see if with the disguise on the other children they would treat me differently!
Luna : (surprised) It was... Celine's idea?
Orion: We talked about it a bit, and it seemed like a good idea to me too, so we gave it a try!
To me it feels almost superfluous to write that, at this point, both Hermes and I immediately wanted to talk about it with my brother Milo and Noemi, I never expected that a similar idea could come from their daughter Celine. I hadn't seen her for a while, I remembered her as a sweet little girl with a bow in her long curly hair. But...
Celine: Yes, it was my idea. So what? I don't see any problem with it.
Milo: You can't instigate children to break the law, Celine!
Celine: But it's such a stupid law! All the other children treat them very badly just because they are aliens, and they could avoid it altogether just with a simple disguise!
Noemi: But...
Celine: blah blah blah... You can say whatever you want, but I won't change my mind.
In the end, both Orion and Celine ended up being punished, but I have a feeling that neither of them understood the lesson. The situation is becoming more complicated every day, what should we do?
While the children were at school, Hermes and I went back to Sixam to think about the situation, sometimes we feel like simply being there help us reflect about our problems. If the government knew about our black hole generator in the basement, it would probably declare that illegal as well. A couple of times we even wondered if we should stop using it or even get rid of it. But we have many memories, good and bad, linked to that planet... After all, what harm do we do?
Luna: ... I really don't know what we should do with Orion...
Hermes: Considering the current situation, we couldn't tell him anything else.
Luna: ...
Hermes: Luna, is there anything else worrying you?
Luna: ... sometimes, I wonder if we were right to stop disguising as we did.
Hermes: ...
Luna: We decided to do it to help the hybrids, who cannot disguise themselves and otherwise would have been kept locked up who knows where by the Elders' Council... But we were also so young when we took that decision.
Hermes: Luna...
Luna: I'm probably being selfish, but thinking about our children, and about the laws that Mr S. is approving every other week... I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier if we all kept disguising ourselves as humans. Looking back, I have the impression that our childhood was much more peaceful than that of Leo, Orion and Aster.
Hermes: Back then, I didn't expect the humans to distrust us so much, you're right...
Luna: Maybe that's why we can't convince Orion. Maybe, deep down, we think there are other problems out there, far worse than what he did...
Hermes: Luna ... we made many difficult choices, but we always chose to do what seemed right.
Luna: Even if the results were quite different from what we expected...
Luna: Hermes, in your opinion... What should we do now?
Hermes: (Doubtful) Well, I have a few options... But we will have to evaluate them very, very thoughtfully before taking any decision.
So we started to talk, to talk and talk. We didn't know it yet, but that was just the beginning of yet another great change for our family.
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§HermioneSims§ corner
This chapter was particularly packed, and I didn't manage to introduce any update on the Miller cats without breaking the rhythm. The more the story progresses, the more I'm struggling with it actually, maybe there are just too many cats for writing down a fast-paced story as a legacy has to be...
Either way, even if she wasn't named in the chapter, the kitten Amazonia just grew up, she is so classy!
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