5.7 The legion

Rumours had it that legions of domesticated cats roamed the city, rubbing up against sims and not standing for beeing rejected for cuddling. To Nedas surprise; the rumour turned out to be true and as the journalist she was, it was her job to write about it. She might not get the good stories yet, but it was well worth the investigation and her boss loved cute stories.

They truly were adorable, even towards eachother. But by the looks of the cats eyes, there was either inbreeding or a problem with eyediseases. She should write that down to.

Not surprisingly Neda also found her mother near all the cats, so they decided to bond a bit as a family. The little incident with Steve was already forgotten, and mum and dad hadn't said anything else. For now, they just rollerskated together without falling, for a change.

As the great twinsister she was, she even invited out her brother and his wife so they could have a doubledate. As much as she wanted to dislike Lillian, Dragan was right; she was really friendly and easy to get along with. No wonder her parents liked her. She was great! And she was so not witchlike, she'd kind of expected cakling or something but no, she was just nice.

Damn Dragan, Lillian is really great! Neda rarely had problems beeing heard over loud music. She always ended up beeing the one that was screaming a conversation when the music stopped anyway.

Yeah I know. I told you. 

Yeah, but she's really great. I didn't think she'd be that nice. 

He seemed to appriceate her acceptance of his wife. Not that she'd had another choice, but there was this magic twin- bond that they didn't seem to have. But maybe he thought they did.

They loved you Texas! Ofcourse they had loved him, he was perfect and he seemed to appreciate it to. It had to be important to him to be liked by her family. Because it was important to her that they liked him.

Your brother and his wife were really nice. I think they liked me a lot better than your parents did. 

Don't care about them, they'll come around and see what a perfect match we are! Because the perfect match was the important thing.

Just because the other couple had left, didn't mean the two of them had to call it a night. Neda took the chance on dancing on the table of the club, and she neither fell down, nor did the table break under her weight. It was a successful night. 

Even if it would've been a lot nicer if her boyfriend had stayed upstairs with her.

She was never able to stay mad at him for long though. Living together had a lot of benefits. And she loved living with him! Because they were so good together.

Ofcourse they had separate hobbies, and Neda wasn't annoyed at his constant playing videogames either. No no, it wasn't annoying at all. Like, what modern day woman would have a problem with that. She was so not going to be that nag of a girlfriend atleast.

He'd changed jobs though, and was now working at the school together with her sister. But why wasn't he dressed yet, it was just an hour until she started work. Had he been up all night playing games? No, that couldn't be true. He was a responsible man, he always had been. Just because he didn't come home every night, didn't mean that something was wrong right?

Aren't you getting changed soon? 

He stroked her hair: Ofcourse Neda. But I start a few hours later than you do. You knew that right?

The look he gave her, made her melt: Well, no. You haven't told me. 

Oh, I thought you knew. Since your sister works at the school to. 

She was silly, what was she expecting that he'd tell her absolutely everything that went on at work. She didn't tell him everything either. Wondered why he'd quit though, was it because of mum and dad hadn't liked it?

So as Neda went to work, she ofcourse trusted Steve to be responsible and get ready for work. He probably did.

She'd volunteered to intervju sims around town, and decided on talking to a very blond man.

Expecting him to talk about his bleached hair, it turned out it was natural: No, it's true. I keep going to the hairdresser, but everytime they just refuse to give me a haircut. They won't let me "cut that beautiful angellike hair"! Then I thought the news should know about that! It's discrimination!

Neda did her best to avoid telling the subject that it wasn't discrimination; that's not how it worked. But she preffered a subject that kept talking, so she didn't say anything.

Then I realized what was actually happening! The subject kept talking.

And what was that it that happened sir? It was a bit strange calling someone her own age "sir", but he seemed fine with it.

He tapped a wellmanicured finger on his head: It's the government! It's a government plot to mindcontrol sims. Think about it! Why else does so many sims have long hair! And so many old men and women with pigtails?! And always those ribbons in them, right?

Personally she'd just assumed old sims liked to troll the young ones.

So that's how I figured out where all the weird hairstyles are coming from. The government are mindcontrolling sims into having pony and pigtails, because it makes sure we get used to seeing it. And thats how the aliens are infiltrating the world. Because the simskin they wear have to be fastened in some way, and the zipper is at the back of the head, and pigtail and ponytails makes sure the suits stay in one place.

Ah, so this was why no one at her office had wanted the task of intervjuing sims in the street. They were crazy. Neda did her best to pretend she wasn't taken by surprised, or even the least bit scared. Because she kind of was. He seemed harmless but  was probably twice as wide as her.

That's why I talked to you ofcourse, because your hair is down. That means your not one of the aliens, Blondie continued.

But you're hair is in a ponytail. Are you an alien sir? Neda was trying her best to take this seriously. Wow, she was really desperate for a promotion.

No, I just told you it's a government conspiracy. So... is it against journalistic ethics to go on a date with subjects you intervju?

Yes sir, Neda lied: We're not allowed to date sims we've ever talked to. Holy shit, what a crazy bastard. Besides, she wasn't really into blondes.

She really wanted a raise, so Neda did the only thing she could think of: Mum, I was asked by my boss to intervju sims around town. But they are so crazy. Can I intervju you? You must have some good stories to tell?

Neda nearly swallowed her tongue. What if she thought she meant her missing daughter? Holy shit, what was she thinking?! She'd almost forgotten it herself for crying out loud.

Though she didn't get the reaction she was expecting: You want a story? About me? Maybe the fullmoon screwed with mums head, as she continued: Can you guarantee me anonymity? 

Uhm, yeah sure. It was pretty common that they didn't give out their sources. Journalists wasn't obliged to give this out to the lawenforcment; atleast up to a certain degree.

Mum pulled a very eerie face: Fine, I'll give you a story....

You know the music- painting upstairs? Mine. You know The nightsims? Also mine. I've been forging art for ages. I can't even remember how many, but there's a lot of them.

Neda wrote the entire thing down as mum spoke, either she was going senile or this was the scoop of the century, and she was going to get a fast promotion.

Now most of them aren't here, they are at the really big ones; like Tate.

Don't believe me? Print the story, and someone will check. It might be a bad idea to tell, but she was old now anyway.

Neda wasn't really sure what to believe, but she wrote it down none the less: Where are the originals?

I have no idea. Probably at some collectors. It took a while before they told me that the paintings weren't sold, but switched out with the originals.

Who are "they"?

Ah honey, I can't tell you that. Not that it matters, because I was the youngest one there. Alice disappeared a long time ago, think she went underground or something when the cops were at her tail. She had so many co- workers that just went missing, and new ones came along. She could barely remember any of them.

Alice?

Yeah, she forged statues. I usually forged the ancient paintings, but some of the modern ones to.

You should've seen your old mum mix tempra. Shit is hard to get to look old, because it doesn't always bind or even age that well, depends what you mix it with. And that hoof- glue we had to cook; smelled the entire place up. Preppy fucking "expert" couldn't even tell it from the real deal. 

She had tried not to feel to proud about those things when younger. But now that she was old and wise, the memories was always so sweet.

Can I use Alices name do you think mum? 

Shouldn't be a problem. She was as old as I am now, when I was as young as you.

It was good times Neda. Mum smiled at her, clearly living back in her youth for a second: I remember when I told Daniel, I was so scared that he'd turn me in. But he just thought it was funny. I've always loved his questionable morales. Aino still wondered how her little Neda had turned out so flawless; Dragan was a hacker, Irena a mooch and Niko ran off from all of the world; but Neda was just perfectly normal.

Thanks mum. I won't tell anyone where I got the story.

And then I found my stuff! The guys had put it in pudding, and then I had to eat it to be able to get to it! And then I ended up with pudding all over me, and it was so embarassing! She couldn't believe that her co- workers had done that to her! Maybe they were just trying to be funny, but she hadn't thought they were: And I don't even know why. Why do they always prank me?Why not someone else?

Was Steve getting bored with her? He was so difficult to get to talk; Eeerr.. Neda. You just got a massive promotion and paycheck because of that huge artforging scandal you broke. Don't you think maybe that had something to do with it?

Why would they prank me because of that? What an odd thing to say. She'd be happy for them if they broke a huge story like that, so they'd be happy for her to.

Maybe it's not a prank. To be honest, I think it comes off as workplace bullying. A lot of sims tries to pull that off as "pranks".

Wow, he was such a suspicious guy: Listen Texas, I get what your trying to do her and I really appreciate it. But that doesn't make any sense! It could've happeend to any of the guys. They are way better reporters than I am! 

He probably wasn't as tired with her as he sounded: You seem to forget that I've also worked with them. And they are nice enough, but you're still a young girl that broke a huge story; and they are aging men that won't get that big a scoop in their entire careeres. 

It's nice that you're worried about me Texas, but they've always been nice. These things just happens to me. It was a part of beeing a looser. She'd always been a looser.

Are you sure? He didn't seem to convinced.

I'm sure

Are we getting married soon? 

Soon Neda, soon. He hugged her when saying it. Was he hiding something from her? Because he often didn't come home until late night, and sometimes he hadn't slept in the bed at all, even if he claimed he did.

Despite beeing succesful in her careere, her personal life didn't seem to go to well: Neda, could you please stop calling me Texas? My name's Steve. I'd kind of prefer that.

Sure. But she liked calling him Texas. That was the first impression she'd had of him; some guy that had gone all texas on someone; so that was what she wanted to keep calling him. Why didn't he do whatever she saw fit?

And he wasn't as perfect as he once had been either, because she'd started doing dishes quite often. Not to mention that he never ever did the laundry either. It was always her. But that would change once they got married right? If they ever did.

She thought she really did her best to be a good girlfriend. But she thought he was a bit uncuddly.

But he always had time to play those damned games.

When spring ended, Neda decided to throw a bonfire party, the weather was beautiful and she'd invited all her coworkers to. Maybe they'd stop pranking her then.

Since she never could do anything right, rain started pouring down at the beach and they had nowhere to hide inside. Well, atleast Tex... Steve had showed up this time. And she had been smart and taken a lot of nectar with her to keep everyone drunk as toads.

And she'd really wanted to impress her boss, Bai: I'm so sorry Bai. I checked the weatherforcast and all and it didn't say it was going to rain. This was so embarassing.

It'sh not a problem, he slurred; clearly he'd helped himself to quite a few glasses; a little rain nevher hurt anyone!

And here I was scheeming to get a raise and all! She joked.

Ofcourshe you can have a raish! Bai grinned: An offiche party is schomthing we've never tried before! 

Wow! Thanks! Well that was easy. Best to take advantage of her boss when he was drunk then.

A cute little shing like you raish schomething on me to! 

Neda laughed awkwardly; he probably meant something different.

You ghot that Neda! I meant my....

Okay! She laughed way to loudly: I think it's time that we call it a night! You've had to much to drink there Bai. It always happened to her. Well, she'd gotten a raise, so she was fine.

Her and Steve decided to end the day at the fair, but it was to heavy rain to do anything outside. Instead they just enjoyed eachothers company: That was a disaster.

You're quite the unlucky one aren't you. He actually managed to seem like he thought it was adorable.

Nah, I got you. She wished he'd say cute things like that to her to.

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Pretty much all the sims in my game has lost their eyebrows now; they've even started new trends on their own. And there's no reason to worry about Bai, he's a bit inapropriat at times, but harmless. Neda blew off his botched flirt attempt pretty easily.

I know that the bonfire party isn't the right seasonal party, but I figured that I wanted to try a juicekeg party, since I have the sims- for- all- season roll. That way I get to try some different parties, and it doesn't get that boring. Besides, I just send them to the festival lot due to the rules when I do. I sent Neda and some of the other partygoers to the springfestival, but it rained so much so the pictures just ended up beeing aweful. But, that means the roll is still fullfilled.

Thanks for reading