Education

Things that have happened so far:

It is Wednesday of Week 2 since Aurora left college for the Moon Base, and she has cleared Education. Woo!

A burglary happened, and the burglar made off with a crib and the radio. Boo!

And Aurora met her one true love, who happens to be a burglar himself. And single! Woo!

Only then he moves in and he is no longer a burglar. Apparently he wasn't precisely in the criminal career track - I had no idea - and has no skills whatsoever, with only nine days left until elder. If I blew literally all my aging-off days I might - might be able to have him clear a career. Alternatively if he gets a career that requires athletic skill. He does have the athletic trait, so getting to ten athletics is a possibility.

Then I realize that I have neither a door for the pantry nor a toilet nor a grill. I elect to buy the grill and the door.

Here's a disgusting fact: If your mundane sim wets himself, your plant sim can absorb the puddle. Think really, really hard on that.

Then he got Professional Sports. Score!

Berry and Barley are born. Berry is my first 'born' plant baby, so she's the heir, for better or worse.

Both Berry and Barley got the Loves the Outdoors trait. Berry got Athletic while Barley got Good.

Since I have Education lifted I can choose traits - assuming that the life stage gives me an option. I don't know how to get Plant Sim babies to pick traits, but they're usually 'positive' traits that they do get. The transition from Toddler to Child is therefore quite important - one of my strategies is to give all of my plants Inappropriate, since dehydration is pretty bad.

---

I woke up suddenly in a dark place. It was terrifying - there were straps holding me down, and tubes going to every conceivable part of my body. I panicked, I screamed until my lungs gave out, and finally, finally, they came to let me out. The lightless coffin opened, and gentle hands freed me from my tomb. I was crying when they released me.

There were several ships sent to this place - Moon Base Charlie, they call it. Mine was one of the later ships to arrive, so most of the work was already done. They set me up in a decent-sized house, a thing made of steel and painted to look like wood.

It was a windowless box, barely better than the coffin. I felt like I would suffocate as I stepped inside.

Welcome home.

--

I have settled in to life here at Moon Base Charlie. It is a frigid, dark moon, with no plants and few animals. We haven't the infrastructure to properly terraform, they say - why did they send humans to an uninhabitable moon?

There are points where I get angry. The hierarchy in place puts criminals squarely at the top of the food chain, with honest, working folk stuck at the bottom. What should be a cooperative effort to establish civilization is instead fraught with corruption and deceit. So much for 'the best and brightest.'

So the criminal overlords 'request' protection payments, threatening violence if you don't - or can't - pay. Then, even if you do pay, some of their thugs come to take some of your things. Then, they all claim that it was someone unaffiliated with 'the family' who did it, and to watch your mouth or they'll do worse to you.

I didn't get here by being stupid, but they seem to take me for a fool.

There is one man in this entire organization who seems uncomfortable with what's happening. We struck up a conversation one time. He made me laugh, which - I haven't laughed about much lately.

I like him.

--

By the Creator, how time flies. I have been working almost non-stop as a teacher - it feels like only a week, maybe two, has passed, but it must have been months, or at least that's what the calendar tells me. Days can last weeks at a time, nights almost as long. It's tough to adjust to, but you get used to it eventually.

I took the man I mentioned before as my husband - he teases me that I'm robbing the cradle, since he was born and raised on the Moon Base - he's much younger, in a sense, than I am. But physically, he's aging fast. I see gray in his hair, and wrinkles in his face, around his eyes.

We have brought two lovely infants into the world. When we - ahem - became mates, my body flowered, and produced their seeds. Curious, I planted them in some of the soil we'd brought from the old world. I think I knew what was going to happen, in some distant part of my soul, but it still came as a surprise when the mound of dirt began to wail.

I have named the twins "Barley" and "Berry." Barley is forever crying, demanding that attention be heaped upon her, while her sister stays quiet, almost thoughtful.

I never thought I'd be having children at the ripe old age of several hundred years old!

There are things you take for granted. For example, the dead are supposed to stay in their graves. But they don't. Some power brings them back as zombies, monsters interested only in human - or plant - flesh. I had heard stories, back on the homeworld - is it possible that the creatures of our past followed us to our future?

My husband gave up the life of crime after we married. He went straight, he says, and works with the scientists to create an experimental serum that will help people overcome the increased gravity of the moon. As it stands, it takes several strong men to complete a one-person job. I worry that he won't live to see his work complete - I may be old in a literal sense, but ... I still look - and feel - young. He doesn't.

Creator, let him live just a little longer.