Chapter 44: One

Blaze and Zinnia quickly settle into their new mansion. They have a hot tub now.

And a pond.

There's also this mysterious door that leads to a large unfinished basement, full of quirky miscellanea and crates of nectar.

Blaze finds lots of advanced technology, including a holographic pet toy and a hoverboard.

"These belonged to my grandmother, apparently," Zinnia says, looking at the jetpacks and the insect-like robots that line the walls. "I never met her."

The house is quite enormous for two people, so Zinnia and Blaze are hoping for a child as soon as possible.

Master bedroom. I really like that space pattern, in case you couldn't tell.

Now that they're familiar with other's bodies, their lovemaking is much more enjoyable.

Zinnia converts part of the basement into a science room, and starts a garden. She wants to have a nice place for her and Blaze to work and study, as well as an area to showcase the beauty in science and nature.

Blaze checks out the jetpack he found amidst the clutter.

He has recently been offered a job at the observatory, since he was always lurking around, trying to catch a glimpse of the astronomers and space explorers at work. Because he has no work experience yet, he's just the planetarium operator, in charge of narrating the shows and giving tours. He's confident that he will be able to work his way up in no time, though.

Actually, being handy with a jetpack might impress his boss. He flies around for most of the evening.

Zinnia doesn't join him in the nine-to-five grind. She kind of wants to be a stay-at-home mom, but so far she's content to play with genetics in her garden and sell her findings to the science center. Once her genetically-modified fruits and vegetables are approved for distribution, she can start making some simoleans that way, too.

Beep boop. Turning tomato seeds into onion seeds. And stuff.

Pregnant? Or sick from eating genetically-modified herbs from her garden?

Or it could just be an excuse for me to show off this themed bathroom.

Blaze and Zinnia adopt a dog. There's room for one, and there's still pet stuff lying around from when Cheech the dog lived here, and anyway Zinnia has always wanted a pet.

Her name is Lily and she loves swimming. Zinnia refuses to buy store-brand dog food, and instead insists on cooking gourmet dog food.

Because Lily is a good dog, and deserves the best.

Yum!

Blaze observes the space explorers at work, and notices that they are all extremely physically fit. He's very glad he attended sports club, now.

He installs a chin-up bar and works out every morning. This cool painting of a planet was hiding in the basement, and is dusted off and hung up for inspiration.

Analyzing her own urine to find out if she's pregnant. And she is!

Jonesy's like, "Wow, already?"

Both Zinnia and Blaze are hoping for a girl, but Jonesy tells Zinnia to expect a boy. "Well, that's all right," Zinnia laughs. They are planning on having lots and lots of children, after all, so there will be plenty of time to have a girl.

"Amazing..." Blaze breathes, his eyes wide. "The female anatomy is truly a miracle." Also, "Our little boy, I can't believe it," and "I love him already."

He resolves to be a great dad, unlike his own, who never really bothered much with him.

Lily sniffs Blaze's crotch in an attempt to communicate her desire to visit the pool.

Amazingly enough, it works.

Yes!

The first of Zinnia's crop is ready for harvest. It's still a pretty juvenile garden, but she loves it anyway.

Raising the quality of her seeds is not exactly a scientific breakthrough, but it is pretty useful when trying to plant Great quality crops.

Blaze needs to be ready to defend himself against hostile aliens. Or at least stay in shape enough to be able to maneuver zero-G.

He practices martial arts until the sun goes down. Zinnia is just coming out to call him in for dinner when she goes into labor.

(Random woman is Blaze's coworker.)

"Hurry!" Blaze shouts, tearing into the hospital like a madman. Zinnia grits her teeth and continues her slow waddle to the doors.

"I - can't - run," she pants. "I'm in labor!"

Oh, right.

A sweet baby boy is born. He is called Polaris, at Blaze's insistence.

Blaze wants to make absolutely sure that his son knows he is cared for. "Daddy loves you," he whispers to the sleeping newborn.

"Ready for number two?"

"Absolutely."

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Notes -

This is the second time I've rolled Farmer/Nectar maker, so I'm trying to go a slightly different route. Alexander, one of my founders, was really into nectar and his garden was very practical, basically just rows and rows of unruly grapevines and cherry trees. I'm hoping that Zinnia's garden will be more a celebration of plants and nature, as well as a site for horticultural mad-scientist experiments and suchlike. Alex never got the cheese-and-steak opportunities, so I am really hoping Zinnia will get them, since it fits in with the eccentric sciencey thing she's got going on. I gave her the opportunist lifetime reward to see if that helps.

Blaze and Zinnia both have weird names, and they'll probably also name their kids weird hipster names with plant and space themes. Because they are nerds and grew up in a bizarre household that left them with little to no concept of "normal."

Mostly the reason I got a dog was so that the gourmet roll would be more challenging. Also, it seemed like Zinnia would want a dog to go with her big house and her smart husband and her 234883 kids.