It was time for a lot of change in the Populous household. Though Bebe had discovered what seemed to be the secret to eternal youth, her children were all growing up fast, and several of them had birthdays to celebrate.
Fitzy, her youngest, was the first to grow up. He had her blue eyes and his father’s dark hair, though he didn’t have much of it as yet. Both Bebe and Asa were excited about training their son in his essential life skills.
Declan also became a child. He felt a little sad that his daddy couldn’t come and see him but Bebe promised he could go visit his father the next day. She wouldn’t say so to any of the children, but she didn’t want their fathers visiting the house. She thought their presence might upset the other children and, more importantly, might affect her relationship with Asa.
Still, Cameron decided a game of tiggy would cheer his little brother up and they played games with each other long into the night. Declan really enjoyed it – it was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders knowing he had a buddy in his big brother.
But the biggest change was that Annalise was about to grow up as well. She scooped out her first ever fish, Erinsborough, ready to take him with her to her new home. She decided to leave the other fish in the aquarium for Cameron and the rest of the boys to enjoy. She was nervous about growing up, leaving home, taking on new responsibilities, but she felt ready.
Annalise had been helping to look after her home and her little brothers for so long and she knew how to make a good deal of money from fishing. She was confident she would survive. She found herself a small place in the middle of town that she could move to, and she bid farewell to her mum, Asa and the boys.
As Annalise Populous stepped into the new world, she took a look at her family home and smiled. They hadn’t always had much money, she hadn’t been able to sleep indoors, they’d had to work hard to clean and cook and take care of the little ones – and to feed the fish, but she had never resented it. Hers had been a happy growing-up period and she was looking forward to seeing what kind of men her brothers grew into. She was leaving home with happy memories.
For Bebe, Annalise’s departure was bittersweet. It had always been part of her plan that her children populate the neighbourhood, that the Populous name spread, that she establish a dynasty. That was why it was so important to her that all of her children had different fathers – the more children she had, the more chance that further down the line there could be some genetic difficulties and she wanted to reduce the dangers of that as much as possible, while ensuring she had a legacy that could change a whole town, maybe even a whole region or nation. So she should have been happy that Annalise was the firstfruits of her children spreading their wings. But she was a good mother, she loved her children and knowing they would fly the nest was also an incredibly sad moment, and though Annalise wasn’t moving far, things would never be the same again.
To take her mind off things, Bebe visited Leighton Sekemoto with the stereo she’d fixed for him a little while ago.
Bebe’s grief manifested itself as a need for affection… and she shared her sadness with Leighton. His own son Sam was of a similar age to Annalise, and he knew all too well the anguish of watching your children grow. He was a great comfort to Bebe…
Old habits sometimes die hard, and so Bebe took solace in Leighton the way she knew best. As she slept by his side, the repercussions of her actions drifted into oblivion, if only for a while…
—
May 12, 2010 at 1:52 am
Awww, sad to see Annalise go, but I hope we’ll see her visit soon! Will Bebe go to see her in her new home?
May 12, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I’ll try and get Bebe or one of the other kids to visit the older children when they move out so you can see where they end up. Not sure how it’ll affect the town having lots of single Populous exports clogging up the houses. May end up having to edit town to shove some of them in together.
May 12, 2010 at 2:00 am
Ah, Leighton fell prey to Bebe’s charms….good on her!
Aww, it is sad to see Annalise move out, but I hope we get to see her from time to time… 🙂
May 12, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Leighton was easy prey. I had worried, because the game put him together with Gobias Koffi and they moved in together, so when I sent Bebe over and Gobias was there I expected Leighton to come up as in a relationship, but he said he was single. Guess they had an amicable break-up. Gobias was also on Bebe’s hitlist but he died not long after this post.
May 12, 2010 at 1:16 pm
You described the parting so beautifully and I like her reasoning a lot. It all makes a lot of sense.
I’m glad Annalise goes with happy childhood memories. It is nice to see all the children getting along and feeling happy.
May 12, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Yes, I might have to consider whether that’s likely to be the case for all of them. Currently running at about a 50% success rate on good parenting (being able to choose all traits) though the others haven’t rolled up any majorly bad traits yet and most have rolled up an LTW (some of which I can fulfil for them, some of which I can’t). The teens all autonomously help with the tinies so it is a pretty happy household. But happy households aren’t massively exciting. Hmmm.
May 12, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Awwwww. Hopefully Annalise will have a good new life. I still think she and Asa should have had an affair.
I wonder how she’ll get around the new baby with Asa. And Fitz may not be happy.
The game picks the strangest random traits hough. Once it assigned the baby the one trait I was going to pick for her.
May 12, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I’ve had that before. It’s funny how it works. I’m sure Annalise and all the other children that grow up will have fun in the time stream. I’ll try to include them occasionally but don’t bank on them making regular appearances.
May 13, 2010 at 2:00 am
Oooh, I see another baby in Bebe’s future. 😉
I wonder how she’s going to explain that to Asa… hopefully the dates line up well enough for her to pretend it’s his.
May 13, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Well, you’re about to find out… 😉
May 13, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Considering Bebe’s driven determination, she’ll find a way to explain it. Astonishing!
May 14, 2010 at 12:14 am
Well, you’ll see in the next chapter. This challenge is astonishing. But so, so much fun.
May 14, 2010 at 12:06 am
[…] < < 13. Saying a Farewell […]
September 7, 2011 at 9:51 pm
NONONONONONO!!!!! BEBE! HOW COULD YOU! Poor Asa.
SPOILER ALERT: Asa has an Affair with Morgena Wolff!
September 7, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Poor Asa? You won’t be saying that soon…