Chapter 47: Kids

For whatever reason, painting is the thing to do with the younger generation Hands.

Each has their own style; Cassie likes to paint stars and hearts and smiling people, while Pol's paintings are a little more... abstract.

Ambrosia has the most talent out of the three of them, and decides to capitalize on this by taking commissions. Her first customer is Polaris, who wants a portrait of Lily the dog done.

"Do my chores for two weeks, and it's done," she tells him.

Polaris scoffs. "Yeah, right! I'll clean your room, once, Rosie, and that's it. It's just a stupid painting."

Ambrosia glowers at her brother. "My NAME is AMBROSIA," she practically shouts. Then, calming down, she says, "If it's just a stupid painting, why don't you do it yourself?" At his silence, Ambrosia looks smug. "Chores for a week, and you can clean my room too if you want. I know you're dying to clean it anyway."

She's right; the clutter in her room does irritate Polaris. And so a deal is struck.

The end result is quite impressive. Polaris hangs the giant painting up next to his bed. For protection.

Blaze gets a promotion at work. Or rather, THE promotion. He's now a top-level space explorer, after having discovered the alien planet Simulon V and made first contact. 

And all before his adult birthday, too; he ages up the day after the big promotion.

Oops. Wrong eyebrows.

Also: Holy shit look at the reflection of the room in his space suit. That is some impressive detail, well done game.

Changing nappies by day, exploring space by night. Being a space dad is hella tight.

Zinnia ages up as well, and has also met success in her work. Somehow, in between raising her five kids, she's managed to develop a number of new species of vegetables and herbs; ones that yield more produce per harvest, ones that rarely need watering, even one that repels weed growth completely. She's also written several papers, including an article on "Farming From Home" that was wildly popular and almost solely responsible for the recent surge in local agriculture. 

For her contributions, city hall has awarded her with this neat little trophy:

Zinnia treats herself with her favorite dish, porcini risotto.

Made with home-grown porcini mushrooms!

The kids, for the most part, couldn't care less about their parents' work. Except for the bragging rights they get at school for having a space explorer for a dad, all they care about is getting that new neko clock.

Or finishing that one painting.

Or perfecting that banana bread recipe.

Cassiopeia thinks she has it all figured out, but what she didn't account for was a blizzard.

Her siblings are playing inside, but Cassie is sure someone will want to buy her muffins. They're perfect muffins, after all.

Or not. :(

Cassie gets excited when Tony shows up at the Hands' front door. She thinks she's finally got her first customer, but Tony's only here to brood and stew in his hatred of Blaze and Zinnia.

Polaris can sense the difference in this man's mind; it's similar to the way the ghosts sound dead, but not exactly. He also knows that this man is his uncle, so he comes outside to say hello.

Before Polaris can say anything, however, Tony snarls at him menacingly. Startled speechless by the hate and evil he can hear in Tony's thoughts, Polaris begins to back away. Cassie, confused by this wordless exchange, is still hopeful about selling a cookie or two to the stranger.

Seeing the kid about to start shouting for his parents, Tony turns abruptly and speeds away. Cassie whimpers in fright at the sight of his alarmingly fast run.

Polaris is a good older brother, and distracts Cassie with a snowball. Soon they are fighting and laughing all over the yard, the strange man forgotten by both.

Cassie is a good audience for Pol's horror stories about government conspiracies and killer yetis. She always gasps and shrieks appropriately, where Ambrosia would scoff and roll her eyes and complain of boredom.

Polaris doesn't mind when Ambrosia is rude or mean; he can read her thoughts, can tell what she's really thinking, all the time, and she knows it. It gives them a kind of secret closeness that manifests in almost constant bickering. Of course, Cassiopeia is left out of the loop, and often admonishes Ambrosia for picking on her "mentally challenged" brother.

Cassie means well, but she just doesn't get it.

Fighting over who has to feed the baby. Sucks to be Sage right now...

Ambrosia wouldn't admit it for anything, but sometimes she thinks her little brother is actually kind of cute.

Sage mostly just smiles. A lot. 

Snow! Hee.

So many Snow Days in a row mean that the kids aren't spending much time with other children. In an effort to get them out of the house, Zinnia and Blaze have installed a Sci-Fi themed treehouse in the backyard. Because they are nerds.

Geeky bonding over Mario Party. Because Mario Party rocks.

Pictured here: Polaris rambling about talking trees, with Cassiopeia nodding along encouragingly. Ambrosia is focused on the game, and does not participate in the discussion.

Even though Pol forfeited and Cassie wasn't paying attention, Ambrosia still loses. She hates losing.

As sweet as she is, Cassie often doesn't know her own strength. She spends a lot of time working out, and as a result she is much stronger than her slender, stick-like siblings.

"There's such a thing as too much exercise, you know," Ambrosia grouses.

"No, there actually isn't," Cassiopeia says matter-of-factly. She's done a hundred jumping jacks already and isn't even out of breath. She just wants to be strong - the strongest. Is that such a bad thing?

Dad, at least, approves.

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Notes - 

Haven't been able to play as much, so this chapter is mostly just fleshing out the kids' personalities. My game keeps freezing.. I really need a new computer.

Playing with five kids all singles is kind of weird. Pol and Nova (the baby) are really far apart in age! If I play more than three kids again I'm going to try for multiples. Actually the last two of Zinnia's were supposed to be twins, I gave her fertility treatment but she popped out two singles instead. -_- What a rip-off!

Also, the snow days are endless. I think Polaris went to school once, and he's nearly a teen. The others have never been. My child stage is like 11 or 12 days, now, so it's been like. Seven straight days of snow. I guess it's a blizzard, or something. :eyeroll: