1.26 The Eater of Itself

It was such a strange feeling, like being a puppet on a string. Once the strings were cut, and the weight of the ground gripped his feet again, Dustin began to feel that adolescent pull of adventure. See the world, experience life through the lives of other sims, those who had built cities, shaped nations, and upheld custom and the spirit of the future.

As much as Starlight Shores catered to and even demanded that it's population worked hard until they 'made it', and after making it, that they kick back and do no further work again and coast on fame, he actually found that what this place gained in intensity it was lacking in authenticity.

For the briefest flash of seconds he had experienced something else, that bittersweet longing to live without the kite strings and fly free, and he had nearly chosen to drift away. Was there something in the sim spirit that would always embrace the cold and clammy swaddling of death?

In any case, there was no doubt about the next conclusion. He could never go back. These new tricks were going to be in every act from now on, so he'd better get them done right.

Hugs.

“Goodnight sweetie. Sorry Dad's late, I'll ask him to give you double hugs tomorrow when you get home from school.”

“'Kay.” Jet agrees. He didn't mind being the man of the house for a little while.

Still on a high from his most successful performance ever (and not about to admit to himself what he almost let happen to his family) Dustin stops at a nearby club to ace a quick audition. It stings a bit that dying on stage only earned him 3,700 simoleans, so the next goal for his career is to make the money worth risking his life, and then invest it. It has renewed his resolve to be the best.

Meghan takes an active role in child rearing for the evening and spends time with Jet. He loves all things bookish so she tries her best to get through one of these ridiculously simple books with him.

Jyoti had friends over for a sleepover that night, and last Meghan knew they were all off telling ghost stories somewhere. She probably should wrangle the kids and make sure they're all in the same place, or whatever parents do with other people's children, but it's kind of a passing thought.

That, and she spent an hour or two as Malcolm or Drea, and can't really remember the in-betweens of it.

But Jet gets his story, so it's all good. This one is about the sad cupcake who wanted to bake himself a family because he felt alone, or something. No wait, this was the cupcake book about societal pressures and acceptance, something about the flavor of the sprinkles. “And that's when Crimson the Cupcake discovered that it was better to be the only red velvet in a sea of vanilla than try to be a vanilla when he is not.”

And she closes the book. Meghan has no idea if this sort of story is good for children (or her children or whatever) she can't tell the preachy life-moral children's books from the ones that are actually only about talking food who accomplish nothing, she just knows that when she was a girl she often wanted somebody to read to her. So now she's reading to her kids.

Flash back to Jyoti, who is old enough to know this isn't a good idea, but wanted to look macho in front of her friends...

...What was Meghan supposed to be doing?

Eventually it's late enough that Dustin's driver is confused he wants to go home next. “Only two establishments?” The man protests in a heavy Lucky Palms accent.

“It's not a pub crawl, Lo'.” He tells the man. “I figured it was already this late and I was wired so I'd take advantage of it and book some larger shows while I was on top of my game.”

Lorenzo doesn't protest any further or mention Mr. Sparrow's criteria for being 'on top of his game'. He just does his job and accepts that he'll have more free time that he thought he would soon.

After being dropped off, and the limo has crawled across the horizon and back out of sight, Dustin still stands outside long enough for his nose to start freezing over.

He's ready to sleep right now, but is he ready to tell anyone about his day? It's not like him to hesitate, but he's having trouble coming to terms with how badly he'd messed up. It's one thing for him to risk his life, and another entirely for him to risk his family's well being.

(Un?)fortunately his wife is still awake and waiting up for him, so all hope of slipping into bed without having to explain himself is lost.

She can tell immediately that something's wrong, usually he comes home smiling like a goofball after a show, money happily in hand. Today, there's money in his hand, but he looks anxious and isn't making eye contact.

He merely stands there for much longer than necessary if he was trying to be dramatic, and pinches the bridge of his nose tightly in his fingers.

“Are you messing with me right now?” She finally asks after he couldn't answer the simple question 'How was your show?'

He stands straight for a moment and faces her, thinking about all that he's expected this job might be. The fame, the happiness, the hard work paying off, getting to make an entire room full of people laugh and enjoy themselves. He'd never imagined it would go this far, that his passion for it would blind him to what was important, keep him from the things that he needed to be doing. From being an active father, a better husband. He resists the urge to wring his hands together in frustration and settles instead on the more conventional option of grinding his teeth. He thought he'd know what to say to her about this. How can he ever explain himself?

Finally his wife inclines her head to get a better look at him from under her curtain of hair. “Dustin, what's wrong?”

And gets a response she was not expecting. He launches his lips at her and she freezes, not expecting the passion or the element of surprise.

It takes a long time for him to release her, it's as if he's pouring every feeling he has into the kiss because words were going to fail him.

When they finally break gently apart and take a few deep breaths, eyes clouded over with affection, he whispers it at her guiltily, in shame. 

“I died tonight.”

And- predictably she has nothing to say to this, so he's forced to give her more information about it. “The flower- it worked. I died on stage tonight. And the thing I saw...” 

She knew the way he shuddered then was real and not an act. “What? What do you mean, you died?”

He just shakes his head for a second, unable to speak. He stops meeting her gaze again and moves to sit quietly at the edge of the bed. He lets out a rough, deep breath and it's as if all of his nervous energy escapes him at once.

After several moments she sits down next to him, and rests her head on his shoulder. “Tell me everything.” She demands quietly.

So he tries.

And she listens. And in the end, she still can't tell him to stop being a magician, to soften his act. Nothing makes him as happy as this does. But, she asks for a few little things, that he research others who have performed similar tricks and increases his practice time exponentially, and that he waits to try it again until she can research the damn flower. It may very well be damned, and a foolish errand to find another one but she will have to try. And there is a new apothecary that opened up across town, maybe she'll try there?

It comes out too, that Moira visited again. She's not happy to hear that after their last discussion. But, what can she say? She's just happy he was able, against all odds and his own 'training', to come back home to her.

He decides to start a scrapbook of his 'life after death', so he can count the many things he's thankful for. This is the first picture in it.

They also decide to plan an awesome vacation, as soon as they can afford it. That still looks to be pretty far away, so at first the effort will be to spend more time together as a family.

To show his commitment to her and the kids in this, he immediately ignores a frantic phone call from his agent.

This baboon-looking creature shows up on their doorstep that night, hopefully it's not a hound from Hell or something.

This gnome keeps Malcom company during the sleepover.

And Jyoti's ruse for attention nearly pays off when Meghan stomps by the sleeping party on her way to the lab and yells that the kids shouldn't all be so 'underfoot'. It's like she doesn't care that they were all going to freeze to death or something.

Jyo was warm though, she was also in her Dino suit.

Meghan wastes no time comparing samples of plants that have unexplained restorative properties, is there a common location or a starting point to this search?

Jet heads off to school the next morning forgetting to eat breakfast and without much fanfair. He seems a bit grumpy about the lack of attention too, although he did get stories read to him last night, which is something.

Jyo rebels by talking to some kid from class instead of getting on the bus. Maybe she'll jog to school or something. Plus, she overheard her parents talking about a romantic trip just for them. It wasn't fair. She wants to have adventures, too!

Even though there are some protests, the kids indeed get a sitter for a week and Dustin and Meghan fly halfway across the loading screen and into another world entirely. Al Simhara is every bit as hot as they wished they could be in the short but horribly cold Starlight Shores winter.

Meghan wonders if the science center here got her email about her official request to the study their collection during this visit? But she tries to focus on her husband for a few seconds first. She's so easily distracted!

But a few moments later she sees something she's never encountered before and literally dives into the bushes to catch it.

Dustin shrugs and says he's going to go meet a bunch of locals.

The real question is, can he take his show on the road one day? If the tips are better here than at home, maybe a tour will be in order?

He quickly discovers that unless he starts kissing snakes, the locals won't care very much for his 'performance art'. He buys a snake charming basket and vows to practice every day (he will use it one time for the rest of his life).

Meanwhile, Meghan discovers that there are several unique species not in her collection, and decides to also get some work done on this trip.

All ideas of being romantic are forgotten for the day in excitement of the possibility of exploration and discovery.

Dustin can't find her anywhere after she jogs off.

He decides to buy a bunch of things he doesn't need from the shops, then ends up performing again. He just has to know what's popular out here!

But most of the locals are just confused. There's no sundial on that device, how can it tell time?

(hilarious joke is mildly amusing)

Eventually some minister of tourism discovers that The Element the Suspicious is visiting and forces him to travel around the dunes in style.

Which feels a bit less like a vacation, and more like a made-for TV Hallmark romance film, complete with the family drama where the husband and wife just wanted to simply reconnect on vacation and both of them end up working because they have no idea how to be alone together anymore.

This view would have been awesome to share with Meghan, who brought her sleeping bag and so could be anywhere. Do jackals hunt humans who camp under the stars at night? Because that totally seems like something she would be doing right now.

Eventually he leaves his driver behind too. There's got to be a limitation to useless celebrity, and the cool night air feels amazing on his face.

But he can't stay away for long, and determined to earn some money on this trip, he is happy to discover that the tourists pay about three times what the locals do in tips. He racks up a few hundred simoleans and starts to feel better about everything. Meghan didn't come back last night, but he trusts her. She hasn't had an episode that he knows of in a very long time, so she was probably off an adventure somewhere, and would come back to the tent tonight with a pile of samples clinking together in her knapsack.

Which isn't too far from the truth. She'd spent so much time at home in her lab since Dustin's near-death experience that she was starting to wake up standing at her machine. It was a thrilling thing to experience the full bearing of the high noon sun with no heavy equipment to slave herself to for once. Not that she regretted working so hard, but she didn't realize how much she needed some time to do nothing like this. She loves technology and her studies and her amazing lab she and her husband had financed, but this is the first time in a long time she's felt any kind of peaceful balance.

It was like the green grass and the gentle breeze and the sound of the sparkling brook were bypassing her conscious thought and speaking to her very soul. Refreshing was not a strong enough word. This was heavenly.

Dustin was having his own kind of spiritual experience.

According to the tourism bureau, he wouldn't be able to keep any of this, it was more of a publicity stunt where he agreed they'd pay some of his and Meghan's expenses while they were here in exchange for making a few 'discoveries' of ancient artifacts and cataloging them at the local museum after posing for pictures. They were hoping that an ad campaign would keep people from coming here just to rob tombs, and instead attract people who cared about preserving their culture.

The ads ran with some kind of catchy slogan that Dustin couldn't actually read. But the gist of it all was;

“Don't let our history

...disappear!”

Or something. But it was nice to have some compensation that he didn't have to stick his head in a basket full of bees or whatever to earn for once.

Either way the two of them do spend time together in the evenings after that, watching the sky full of stars swing over their heads like an upset pendulum, or doing what they liked in a new place, refreshing themselves and renewing their resolve to do things that make them happy too, not just for the sake of the family or each other, but also for themselves.

Dustin is glad he is alive to see this, to feel this. His magic communicates with people beyond the language barrier. Some girl from France raves about how he needs to go there someday, he'll make a lot she says.

Meghan enjoys the vastness of the space around her. Weird how she's spend so much of her life cooped up in small 'safe' places, and never let herself truly roam, unless it was for science. This is different, she roams because she wants, no, needs to and science can happen if she finds an opportunity to fit it in. It's a very liberating concept.

But the way home is a bit silent after that. They went somewhere to rediscover their romance (which hadn't been horrible honestly) and instead they each got to reconnect with themselves. Starlight Shores winter has only just begun, and the kids can't stay kids forever. It's a grueling reminder that time will eat away at anything one gives it, and they are going to give more carefully from now on.

Meghan did find something that the tourism department didn't need to know about however, and wastes no time in duplicating it. Moira was at her house when she wasn't aware of it, the flower worked, which means that something in that crazy woman's story was true. Even more troubling was that Meghan had never actually gotten to meet the woman, and now that they knew she had been on their side, it was far too late to accept her kindness with the way Dustin had chased her off!

Which actually doesn't bother Meghan all that much. What kind of mother would she be, what kind of wife, if she didn't make contingency plans?

Whatever Loki could be up to, and even if he still remembered them, he would never be able to do them harm. If he lives to be fourteen thousand years old, and Meghan has long since died, her children and their offspring would be safe from him.

She'll also have to make sure they never lose her notes about this thing.

Still, time, the eater of itself, would only be able to know how greatly this may be needed one day.

The dream of course is that it never has to be sought after again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you all happy, huh?! I basically wrote a children's book series for you! I kind of want to write about sad cupcake now lol. I probably will too, since I told my husband about it and he seems to think we should have some sort of children's book-writing competition... like he could come up with something better than Crimson the cupcake! >:o

Dustin seriously went home and scowled for a while, thinking about his life time wish >_>; He looked pissed about the whole thing.