Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten: Going Home

When I walked through the doors of my childhood home, I noticed a million things at once. I had lived my whole life here until mid- August, and even though I had been gone months, everything was the exact same. Mom and Dad’s favorite snow globe sat upon the table in the foyer; it was the only thing that didn’t blend into the green and aqua color scheme. The smell of the scented wall plug-ins greeted me, and I inhaled deeply. The smell was so familiar and comforting that if there was only one scent I could ever smell again, it would be that one. It was a mix between lavender and mint, and it brought forth memories of warm hugs and kisses from my younger years, and a wide smile spread across my lips. The thing that I noticed above all, however, was that I was missed.

A lot of my grade school and high school projects hung on the wall in the foyer, and I know for a fact that none of that was up when I was here the last time. There were also a lot more family pictures hung on the walls, and I smiled.

I missed home so much.

Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine: Shaken Up

My heart was beating uncontrollably in my chest, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Beads of sweat pooled at my hairline, and I could feel it making its way down the back of my neck. What if he refused to take the money I had? I glanced over Flax once more, realizing that his confused look had changed back to the previous determined look. He narrowed his eyes and the scowl on his lips reconfirmed the fact that he wasn’t likely to let Nepal leave without getting the money he was owed. I could feel the hot fear claw its way up my throat, making it difficult to breathe. I could feel it growing up my lungs like vines. Nepal was in no condition to pay now — and I wasn’t about to go digging in his pockets — but I feared what Flax would do if he didn’t get his money soon.

I had no other option. I could’nt let my fear show.

I took a deep breath as subtly as I could, staring at Flax the entire time. I straightened the bills. I outstretched my hand towards Flax. “I have forty. Will that be enough to tie you over until Nepal can pay you the rest?”

Flax looked at the bills in my hand for a long time before he glanced up at me, one of his eyebrows raised. He placed his hand on his hip and he met my eyes, and in that moment, I knew we were in trouble. I could feel it sinking down within me — the forty wasn’t going to be enough. I could see it in his eyes, almost as clear as day — he wanted the full fifty right here, right now. I was sweating even more now, and the small hairs on my body rose up as I swallowed hard. I could feel my palms becoming sticky as I gripped the bills harder. He wasn’t going to take it, he wasn’t going to—

And then, suddenly, everything changed.

Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight: Bonfire

I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums

I felt the ground vibrating to the beat of the music long before we got out of the car. In fact, I believed we could feel the music long before we even parked. The bonfire was held well off campus — it took us thirty minutes in total to arrive at our destination — and the road was full of dirt, making the drive rather bumpy. There was a slew of cars already gathered around us, and through the trees and bushes there were flickers of light, probably coming from the bonfire.

Azul parked the car behind a green truck and all three of us — Azul, Ember and I — got out of the car. As we walked towards the light, the beating rhythm of the music traveled up my legs, and the slight November breeze blew at my skirt, sending a chill up my spine. The chill made me a little nervous about being too cold in my usual attire. I should’ve thought to look at the weather before we left. The lights became brighter and noise became louder the closer we traveled, and the goosebumps were forming on my cold skin. I shivered. I hoped that we’d at least stop by the fire once.

Oh, what a shame that you came here with someone

The music racked my chest, causing my heart to pound faster as Azul and Ember pushed aside tree branches in front of me. With nothing no longer shielding all the fire, light poured down onto us, and I had to cover my eyes for a brief moment. It didn’t take long, but once my eyes adjusted, I lowered my hand, only to find that Ember had fled, leaving both Azul and I behind as she made a beeline towards something that was just out of my sight. Azul stood in front of me, blocking my view of the bonfire. However, the fire behind her raged on, sending sparks of ash and embers spewing away from it, and it outlined her silhouette perfectly. After a few more moments I was able to make out small details of her face.

Liebster Award

Until My Color Fades Away was nominated for the Liebster Award by four lovely people, Jax (And Then It Rained…), sandybeachgirl (A Ray of Sunshine), paige795 (Future of the Fae), and  Jobug1015 (The Secret Life of Jewell). Thank you all so much for nominating me! It really means the world.

When I first was nominated, I’ll admit I had no idea what this award was – I had to go look it up. The Liebster Award is when bloggers support and market other blogs/bloggers they really enjoy. These are the rules to accepting this award:

• Post award on your blog.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 5 – 11 other bloggers who you think deserves the award and have fewer than or equal to 3,000 followers.
• Answer the 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you.
• Ask 11 questions of your own to the bloggers you’ve nominated.

Nominations:

1. Too Much Color, Too Little Time – I know this blog hasn’t been updated in over two years now, but it will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first berry story I read, and it is what inspired me to start writing my own. The plot is very engaging, and all the characters are likable and relatable.
2. Fate Always Loses Hold – Mel is a really good writer, and I have loved watching her grow! Her story is very well written, and she handles some very serious topics with so much respect, it’s amazing.
3. The Danevbie Legacy – Hands down one of my all-time favorite sim legacies. It is filled with such drama, and twists that you never saw coming. All the characters feel so extremely well, and the plot/writing gets better and better with each chapter.
4. Polychromeward Bound – Also written by The Danevbie Legacy, but this story really deserves some recognition. One of the best berry legacies I’ve ever read, and even though it’s only on generation two, I can see it heading to great places!
5. Shattered Light – not technically a blog, but I love the story nevertheless. Jeez, how do I even start? It’s written by one of my closest friends I’ve met in the sims community, and it’s so good. It continuously inspires me to keep on writing my own rainbowcy. I absolutely love it – I highly recommend it.
6. Lost In Wonderland – Very intriguing plot lines! As we see each new generation roll around, my long lost sister Haley’s writing skills just keep getting better and better. All of her characters have been interesting, and there has never been a dull moment in her rainbowcy. She handles some dark topics, though, but she does it so respectfully.
7. Colourcaste – I absolutely love dystopians/post-apocalyptic stories, and I love it even more when you combine it with rainbow sims, and that’s what this story is! The worldbuilding in this story is absolutely stunning, and everything sucks you to the point where you want more.
8. The Drake Family Secrets – the plotline and mystery in this legacy is the absolute best! The characters are extremely likable, and it is extremely well-written.

I’ve decided to put the questions under a read more, just because there are 44 of them and some of them do contain spoilers if you are not caught up to the current generation of the rainbowcy. :]

Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Seven Part Two

Chapter Seven Part Two: The Basement

My eyes went wide.

A merberry.

I could hardly comprehend what my eyes were seeing, but they did not betray me.
Mishka was, with the utmost clarity, a merberry.

All my life I had heard how merberries went extinct, but…alas…that was not true. It became so crystal clear why he was down here — he came down here because nobody ever did. He came down here to be able to swim and be a merberry in peace. My gaze flicked up, noticing that Mishka had his head tilted to the side, his eyebrows brought together in confusion at my shocked expression. He didn’t realize that I could see his scales. I tried my best to put a neutral expression on my face, but that only made Mishka’s head tilt even more to the side. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to keep his gaze, to refuse the desire to gaze at his scales, to stop myself from imposing and being rude, but I wasn’t successful. My curiosity was greater than my mind. I snuck a glance at his scales.

The colors bled seamlessly together, but the closer I looked, I realized that something was..different. Instead of being a brilliant shade like his skin, hair, and eyes were, like I had originally thought, his scales were actually slightly tinted white, and it appeared that some of them were flaking off. That didn’t exactly look like a good sign, but I didn’t know much about merberries — nobody did — so…maybe that was normal for them?

Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Seven Part One

Chapter Seven Part One: The Basement

“My roots are coming in big time,” Ember commented as she, Azul and I made our way into the campus gym.

It was the final weekend of November, and my workload had calmed down to the point where I was finally able to accept Azul’s workout offer. This was my first time going to the campus gym to work out in a group, and I was beyond excited. None of the others were able to join us, but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed spending time with Azul. Ember…well…Ember was a tad bit harder to be around, but that didn’t stop me from trying. She was just a bit rougher around the edges than others, and that was alright. Besides, it was I who did the stupid things to upset her.

Azul and I glanced in Ember’s direction. Ember pulled her hair from her head, her eyes focused upwards on the orange streaks of hair closest her forehead.

A pfft noise came somewhere from Azul’s throat as she let out a snort, rolling her eyes, “Is that really all you can focus on right now? Your hair?”

Ember shot Azul a look from the corner of her eye before her attention returned to her hair once again. “You worry about your hair as well.”

“Not when we’re going to go work out.” Azul pointed out with a sigh, “Alright, how about this: we work out for an hour or so, stop by a store and we’ll get you the dye so we can dye it back at my dorm. So, we’ll have you set for that bonfire tonight.” Azul said as we made our way further into the gym.

Ember stopped in her tracks and let go of her hair, her eyes full of excitement as she looked at Azul with a slightly opened mouth, “For real? You’d dye my hair for me?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about dying mine — or at least putting some of that hair chalk in it — for that party tonight. I’ve dyed hair before. It’s super easy.”

75,000 View Special

The moon illuminated the path in front of me, and I knelt down so I could get a better look at the creature who stood frozen several paces before me. It was white and furry, probably soft, too, with big, round eyes that reflected the moonlight, and a cute puff ball for a tail. The creature also had long white ears, perked straight up. I’d seen rabbits my entire life, but I had never gotten so close to one before.

The closest I had ever gotten to a rabbit was whenever I gazed out the window and one just happened to be in the yard. How often I used to gazed out the window, unfortunately, was a lot. Over the past six months, however, that changed. I grew more determined to achieve the thing I desired most in the world.

I wanted to feel the sun on my face, my arms, my legs…my skin. I didn’t want to only have to read about what the sun felt like. I wanted to experience it. I didn’t want to have to rely on solely blood for my survival. I wanted to eat all the amazing foods Dad and Thistle gushed about. I didn’t want to be immortal. I didn’t want to be a vampberry. So, six months ago, I decided that I would stop sitting around feeling sorry for myself if there was something I could do about my condition.

I set out on a quest to become mortal. I didn’t know if such a thing was possible, but…if I had forever to figure it out.

From what little I understood, rabbits were timid creatures that would run away if anything came too close to them, but this rabbit did not run. It stayed paralyzed in front of me, its heartbeat going off the charts. My throat had an automatic response to the sound of the heartbeat, straining itself with the desire to taste the rabbit’s blood, even though I had already fed earlier tonight.

I had never gotten control over my thirst. Not completely, anyways.

But I was determined not to hurt this rabbit.

False Assumptions

“Here’s a toast,” Bay started, and all the side-conversations and laughter faded away as everyone in the room turned their attention to him. Once he knew he had everyone’s attention, Bay raised his plastic cup, and the nectar inside sloshed over the side of the cup and landed on the floor with a splash, but nobody besides me paid attention to it. Everyone was waiting for him to continue, and once I looked up to meet his eyes, he smirked. “Here’s a toast to Nova here for alerting us to the fact that the rainbowing Shamrock Plaza was on fire. You really are the town’s Golden Boy, aren’t you?”

As everyone around me began to raise their cups up as well, I felt a grimace trying to display on my face. I absolutely hated it when they called me that — Bay knew that — but it never seemed to stop them. No matter how many times I asked them to, they would never stop. Do one ‘heroic’ thing when you were younger and you get slapped with the title “Town Hero” or “Golden Boy”. The more I objected to my “title”, as they called it, the more they used it and called me humble. The less I objected to my “title”, the more they used it and called me arrogant and completely full of myself. There was no winning, so I eventually just accepted it. The “Golden Boy” was all I was going to be known as.

I bit the inside of my cheek and took a deep breath before I pushed myself off of the wall. “I wasn’t the only one who happened to be off-duty and there at the time of the start of the fire, Bay.”

Merry Christmas!

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to make a Christmas Special this year (which I sincerely apologize about) but I hope you have a great Christmas (if you celebrate it)! Happy Holidays! :]

Gen 6 ~ Strawberry Clementine ~ Chapter Six

Chapter Six: A Helping Hand

As night fell, the vampberry’s irritation festered and grew until it consumed him.

He was waiting in the hills above the Moonbean Falls University campus, staring out into the fading light until it was safe enough for him to venture from his hiding spot deep within the trees. The trees provided just enough shade to keep him away from what was left of the sun’s rays, allowing his annoyance and hatred to grow in the darkness. He knew he could not trust mortals, he knew that from the beginning, but…why was he still surprised? The mortal he had employed obviously did not value his own life, for if he did, he would have brought the girl to the vampberry by now. It had been four months since the vampberry first came in contact with the mortal. Four months since he had sent the mortal to find Crimson Blood’s daughter.

Four months of absolutely nothing.

An infant mortal would have been able to accomplish more in four months than this worthless, pathetic, young “adult” mortal, the vampberry thought in disdain. He should have been expecting the mortal to come up empty handed. Mortals were useless, but, unfortunately, the vampberry needed one. He was still in the same predicament that he was in four months prior. Moonbean Falls University had a wide variety of females of red origin, and there was no way he could investigate all of them thoroughly himself. He had to be absolutely certain that he had the correct girl. If he did not, the plan would fall through.

And the plan could not fall through.