Dustin is next-leveling this whole old man thing.
1/1 Local children agree. But this kid's not a Sparrow, so his opinion does not count.
At Jet's place, Jyo continues her somewhat destructive behaviors.
...does she know where her kid is at? She does; he's obedient, actually.
Meghan catches up on reading at home, she's been tired lately, and staying off of her feet more and more.
Christian has just lost her mother, Emily. Emily will be the first sim from the migrant group that is buried here and not at the graveyard in Starlight Shores. She has mixed feelings about her mom resting so far away from the mountains and beaches and gardens she'd come to love so well. Feeling ill-equipped for this, Jyoti stays and tries to help them feel a bit better.
Stormy skies take over the Heights that evening and not even the cheerfulness of the searchlights can overcome the cloud layer.
Still, the place remains a beacon of hope. Jyoti and Jet's generation, they're looking for so many things as they work. It's not just to live, it's to build new lives despite loss. To keep going, having given up all that they knew.
They aren't the only ones making a fresh start.
Back at home her son has crashed out in his sleeping bag. He just enjoys anything comfy and warm.
Her mom and dad are safe from the reaper, for now.
Jyo stayed at her brother's place to help with the kids while Christian is having a rough time.
She wakes up earlier than they do by a longshot, used to that strict military schedule of hers.
And makes the one dish she is fully confident in.
Cookies.
Dustin's been forgetting when he's already got food in front of him, lately.
More importantly, it's the weekend! So Casimir can do whatever he likes. What he likes, is sitting on his butt. Still no signs of growing out of that.
This place would be foreshadowing if it would load correctly.
Leila gets to see it first. But she's busy hunting, so she doesn't stop.
She's smart and the motorists are few here, so she safely crosses the roads even in the downtown areas of the city.
After spending time with her brother's family, Jyoti is back to driving aimlessly through the streets on her afternoon off. She's never quite sure what she is expecting to see, except that nothing ever seems to be any different.
But today, some premonition tells her to look behind her as she drives. She blinks, the moment she sees the boy. It reminds her of a distant dream.
She slows the car as a child with long hair in Jet's and her exact color flashes by in the sunshine.
The kid looks like he jumped off the pages of a comic book her son would be reading. It can't be real.
He turns down the street she's on, and she stops her car and gets out to get a closer look.
Unreal. Nobody that's she's ever met outside of her immediate family has her dad's hair color. It's rare, even back where he came from originally. And, here it is, two more towns away.
She has no qualms about following the boy a ways back in her vehicle.
She's not sure if her hearts sinks or soars when she sees him turn off and drop his bike in the brambles at the research station that everyone has been watching for so long. It hasn't been too long since it was returned to an original interested party whose name was not disclosed by the city council. The nurse and her lackeys had been chased out, and the leads had been lost. Clearly the leaders of Roaring Heights want to protect their citizens from unnecessary scandal.
She gets out a ways away, and can't believe her eyes.
A man with a head of very familiar blond hair comes out to greet him.
So she sprints the rest of the way.
“You told me to be careful, but some lady followed me home.” The boy says.
“I keep telling you, the paper lady is not a threat of any kind-” He starts but then stops short. That's a mind he knows very well.
“Hey.” Waves Jyoti, casually walking now, her steps filled with tension and purpose despite the smile on her lips. “I'm sure you expected to see me today?” She says through clenched teeth.
“What in the recycle bin is going on here?” She asks, when the blond man says nothing. Loki bakes slowly in the full sunlight, not sure how to answer her. It was a bad idea to let the kid go biking after all. But he liked being able to go, and Loki didn't want to hold him back from anything he liked, after what he had been through. Jiraya meeting his family hadn't exactly been approved yet, but Jyo wouldn't care about what the city council or the courts or the adoption agencies or the investigative teams said in this moment.
… Would Everet be able to do something to fast-track it?
“I tried to be careful, I went the backways,” the child said, thoughtfully. “This lady followed me anyways.”
“Remember, when I told you, that you have an older brother and sister?” Loki's voice is uncharacteristically gentle.
“No,” The boys intones. “No I'm not going with her.”
“Jiraya-” Loki begins.
“I'm not going.” The boy replies, interrupting with a stomp of his foot. “I'm staying with you.”
“This place isn't really suitable...” Loki is saying, having practically forgotten Jyoti's greeting.
“Loki?” She questions. He turns.
Not one to ever waste her time or sugar-coat things, Jyoti confronts Loki directly in a terse and somehow sad tone. He can sense the apprehension in her thoughts. She is sure he is going to lie to her again, but she wants to believe in the father of her own son...
“I was driving by and I saw him biking, he- well I recognized him. He's my younger brother, isn't he? Why is he here, with you? Tell me you didn't... I mean, what is this?!”
Jiraya stink-eyes Jyoti. Who asked this lady to show up now?
“It's not what it looks like.” The blond vampire quickly tries to assure her. “Jiraya has only been living here for a little while.”
Jyoti's hand clenches into a fist on her hip and she inclines her head. Even holding in her emotions, she struggles to have full control. “So it is my brother, then? My brother... that was adopted accidentally, by an adoption company that had never registered a business license with the city of Starlight Shores, who my parents are still embroiled in lawsuits with Holy Cow Memorial Hospital over, that brother, is living with the father of my only living child? How can you possibly defend yourself? He's a child, you are NOT his guardian and you have no right-”
Loki opens and closes his mouth before finally pressing his thin white lips into a hard line as she lets out a stream of incredulous accusations. Should he come clean, completely? Is it too late for that, or has it not been enough time? It's hard to think of it. He just doesn't feel time passing the same as he used to, unless faced with a reality like this. A key frame in the animation that is his life. “Him being here with me, is a temporary arrangement. I can't just take him back to your parents with the way things are.”
“Like that matters?! You can't just keep him either! Does he even know who any of us are?! How did he come to be here?”
Jiraya, the child with her father's hair and eyes and her mother's complexion and nose, impatiently bounces on his toes or stretches behind the adults. There is nothing worse than being right there while people talk about you.
But she continues, blinking hard. “I heard about you from my mom, the way you thought I might satisfy your need to have a normal family. But we're not a family, Loki.” Her voice is cutting but a tremor removes the edge from her words. Eventually the words come out broken, and hollow. “Our families moved on without us, my husband died and your wife took away your children. The children you so desperately wanted. That does not make, this child yours.
“Or are you keeping him here because you need an off-the-grid victim whenever you want a midnight snack? Because you've just become the monster waiting in the darkness who will never let our family live in peace?”
Loki forms a barrier with his body between she and her brother, his voice tense and cutting quickly into the air as he speaks to his own defense. “No! None of that- well I've never drank from him and I wouldn't ever, he's just a child, in the first place. But that's a side issue. The real issue is that it wasn't easy for me to find him either. You may not know this, but my ex-wife, Circe, well she thought I wanted something like this. She was jealous about how I watched you all, you were who I could have been if I hadn't... changed. And even after years of my telling her to leave your family alone she finally snapped, and took action. Whether it was against me for leaving her or in an effort to get me back, I can't be sure. Your brother Jet, knows much of the story; his articles about the Piper... those are about my ex-wife, Circe. It's over twenty years or more since our divorce, so I had no idea what she was doing all this time. She wasn't my business, anymore.”
Jyoti attempts to swallow the lump in her throat and fails. “I had... a baby about that same time.” She reminds him ruefully. “Stillborn, but I named him Emir. It means Prince. He was our little prince, Malcolm's and mine... he would've been the exact same age as my brother Jiraya, to the day.”
Loki's ice blue eyes search hers carefully for a moment but he says nothing. It's hard to tell what he's thinking. Maybe she doesn't want to know.
But there must have been something in his expression, something in the glittering coldness of his unearthly eyes that started speaking the truth. There was guilt there, when she mentioned her son, her husband, her brother. He knows more, maybe all of it. “It was hard enough learning... that you never wanted to be with me in the first place. That when we were together you were looking at my mom. That was enough.” Her voice changes to an uncharacteristically quiet whisper as the final words tumble from her lips, as if she could do nothing to hold them in any more. And when they come out brokenly, resigned, “Just tell me what you want from us,” they are the last words spoken for the next long while.
Jiraya doesn't really want anything to change. Loki has treated him well and he's able feel safe for the first time he can ever remember. But this lady... his sister, is starting to grow on him. Even Loki has to stop and listen when she speaks. And there's a lot she doesn't know, and it's scary, but he comes to a decision. To be brave and try to meet them. To find out if he belongs.
He approaches slowly after that shaky introduction. “Let me talk to her.” The child says, staring unblinkingly.
“Uncle Loki told me about you, he didn't lie if that's what you're worried about. I mean, I don't think he did. My mom is amazing, he told me she found so many stars! If it was dark I could show you on the telescope. You're my sister, right? Are my parents still alive? You kinda look like I do.” She doesn't say anything, surprised at his serious face and the bubbly tone of voice that didn't match up with it at all. “You... wanted to know why I'm here, but I'm just here. Loki's the one who just got here, did you know that? What's your name? Is my name really Jiraya? They called me something else... in the basement.”
The child changes topics again and speaks reverently of his mothers' accomplishments.
“One of the stars... they actually found out that it was a moon all along. So out in the Andromeda galaxy, circling a star that's only name is a sequence of numbers, there is a moon called 'Drea's B***h'. My mom must be afraid of nothing.”
Jyoti smiles weakly. In the basement, he had said. It's amazing to meet her brother, to know that he is alive and somewhat well right now, but who is he in the hands of really, someone good or someone evil? Loki seems indifferent to titles like that any way. But, a swirl of black doubt begins to form in her mind. It's the first time Loki's ever talked about anyone named Circe, and she sounds... unhinged, but there's still no way he could not have known about his ...wife's activities. “Where have you been, before you were with uh, Loki?” She asked quietly, her voice still guarded and on edge.
“I was busy.” Jiraya says with a smile. “I was the King of the Troll people! And I decided that because I took over everything underground I should climb to the surface and take over the land of the daywalkers, and that's how-”
Not in the mood for games, Jyoti cuts him off. “Loki?”
But Loki has already walked inside, getting out of the harmful rays of beautiful sunlight that were wrapping everyone else in their warm intensity. She sighed. The cinder block and metal palace that Loki apparently called home here looked as if it were uncomfortably cold inside.
“Well, I'm your older sister, my name is Jyoti. I'm very glad ...to meet you, we've been waiting a long time. I still have to go talk to Loki, okay?”
Jiraya nods and turns to go in himself.
Jyo knows better than to tell the boy that she thought he wouldn't be found alive, after all this time. She tries to swallow but her throat sticks.
Jiraya navigates the brambles with the ease of practice, telling himself that things will be alright, even if he has to leave uncle Loki behind. He doesn't really want to, but it's not like he wants to stay in a place that was right above the labs before, either. What's a normal house like? Does it have a yard, some swings?
If he misses Emir, Malcolm and Olivia, he can't let himself think about that too much. If he were to consider that they are still missing, he would have to relive the sorts of things that they must be going through, every day. Malcolm was always pressing the boys with the need to move forward, no matter how difficult it was. He would move on from Loki, and he would move on from this place, because they would want him to.
From across town, Leila manages to find Jyoti. It was as if she could sense her human's unease, or smelled the car, or something.
Jyo feels a swelling of courage replace the lump that was in her throat moments before. “I'll be alright, girl. You can head back out to hunt more.” She leans over for a sloppy dog kiss and heads towards the small yet imposing structure.
