1.7 Of the Chosen

 

"You're getting a promotion very soon! Unlike me!" Alexandria is getting much better at this psychic prediction stuff.

"Your vegetarian girlfriend will stay over at your house more if you stock vegetables in the fridge."

People tolerate her advice as long as it doesn't demand too much of them, and are almost always impressed when she knows things about their lives they haven't told her, even if there are plenty of ways she could have found this information without psychic powers.

 

 

 

"The primaries are happening today! Have you voted?" Talei Hale, visiting the park with her granddaughter Kia, is passionate about politics and wants to make sure the populace is united to vote. Many sims are comfortable enough that they have the luxury of pretending voting doesn't matter, which has allowed corruption to strengthen its hold over their nation. This is certain to come back to bite them in the long run.

Alex doesn't have the heart to tell Talei that her urging people to vote for the circle party, for such good reasons, has actually caused a bunch of people to spitefully vote for the triangle party.

 

Talei is well-educated and highly intelligent, exactly the type of person who almost never pays a fortune teller, but she's getting soft in her old age and accepts Alexandria's offer.

 

Nice technique, Alex. Your customer seems so pleased.

Leaving Lupin to play with Kia, Alex moves on to harassing everyone else at the park.

She runs into an old coworker, Papaya Mulligan, who asks how her career is going since she left the military. Alex tells him it's going great, but she won't meet his eyes. Every time she sees the uniform she thinks about Daniel Pleasant, and she wants to throw up.

 

The park randomly spawned the grill-a-thon event, so I've been watching this disaster play out. This is the third dish Alonso Candelaria has burned to a crisp. He goes on to burn a fourth and fifth before Talei steals the grill from him. Alexandria has a high cooking skill, but wisely stays out of this drama.

Wildflowers.

Mmm, invasive species.

 

Flora thinks she's pretty tough, until she tries to play ball with her ex-military mom.

 

Peek-a-boo!

"You're positive you'll be okay here by yourselves?" Alexandria gives Echo one last chance to change her mind. 

 

Lucretia, Alex's boss, has ordered her to go to China to learn the ancient secrets of alchemy from an elderly potionsmith in a sacred place. Darshan left for a work trip once and never returned, so Flora freaked out, literally cried, and demanded to be brought along, for her peace of mind, but Echo has no interest in world travel. From what she's read, even just walking around in Shang Simla is an athletic achievement anyway, with its extremely hilly terrain. It doesn't sound fun.

"I would prefer to stay here," Echo answers. "I predict Flora is going to be somewhat... insufferable. You realize she only wants to go with you so she can see the Dragon Cave in person, yes? And she has been furiously reading Traps and Triggers: Exploring 101?"

Alexandria's waffle-chewing slows.

"You should keep an eye on her," Echo warns.

The night before she leaves for Shang Simla, Alex tends to her garden. Her thoughts drift to Flora's crying, to Darshan's sudden departure from their lives. Is visiting a witch in a faraway land really a good idea? She doesn't think Lucretia would send her into danger, but Darshan didn't think so, either...

 

 

 

"You're ridden with guilt, because you didn't try hard enough to search for him." The child's bluish gray eyes stare at her, emotionless, as he makes this observation. No judgment, no pity, nothing.

No... something. There isn't a steeled coldness on that little face, nor is there the innocent warmth of a youngster speaking their mind without thinking on how it will affect someone, but there is... exhaustion. Weariness. As if he's been standing here forever. As if he'll be here for another forever. 

"I wouldn't know where to start looking for Darshan," Alex mumbles. "And I was scared... for me, and the children."

He nods, apparently finding her reasoning acceptable. "Parsley thought she could protect herself and you when she looked for me, but she was wrong. You were the one to live with those consequences."

It's been so long since Alex heard her mother's name, it takes a moment for her to realize Parsley Fleet is the Parsley being referred to. "I don't remember what happened."

"They took her brother. She tried to get him back."

"They." Alex repeats, scrunching up her nose. "They?"

"The same who took your vampire from you."

These visions must be drawing from repressed memories, Alex thinks. And then it clicks."You're him. You're my mother's lost little brother."

 

"And you're glitched, but you still don't remember me."

"I only saw him in pictures." Alex turns away, unhappy with these intrusive thoughts of her childhood.

 

Why did they take this kid away from his family? She can't remember, because she was never told. 

 

"They took me because I'm a psychometer." Either he can read her mind, or he's just a creation of her mind to begin with. "Because I know things. Because I can see things after they've been erased." 

"I've read about psychometry," Alex muses, trying to remember what notes the Hibiscus texts have on the subject. Psychometers 'observe' or even 'experience' events in the past by being in close proximity to objects that were a part of the event. Theoretically, even people could be objects... allowing a psychometer to see a person's entire life — up to that point — play out without even speaking to them. "It's not a human ability, it's... uh..." She glances back at the kid for a moment. He's got those long... long ears. "Oh."

His not-quite-blue eyes just keep staring at her passively. "Some witch covens are not very friendly to elves. Our coding has things in it that human coding doesn't. We're a gateway to abilities they cannot otherwise access. Lucky for you, the dryad genetics are more obvious. Hibiscus... depending on the leadership of the era... might turn against you if they knew you had elven magics."

Alex sucks in her breath through her teeth, "I.. I don't, though."

"So much to learn," he says, his tone changing for a second — mournful, "only to forget again."

"I don't know what the hell you're trying to tell me," Alex complains.

"You'll abandon this life when you begin to understand the burden of watching your four children grow old and die while you stay young," the little apparition warns her. "Then, you'll come find me, where they've buried me in this magic-suppressed prison, and if you still want to know, I'll find the truth for you."

"The truth about what?"

"About whether they killed your person or not."

 

Alex flinches. 

"Or about almost anything at all. Is there something you want to know?"

 

"I know many things," he goes on, while she stands there with no response. "I don't know everything, though. I know your past, but maybe not your heart? If there's something else you want... revenge, perhaps... we can get that too."

 

"You wouldn't be a child," she whispers, a meek effort to make him evaporate in a puff of logic. "You'd be an old man." 

 

She's almost convinced herself he looked like he did in the picture. Alex's mother had that one picture of herself as a child, posing with a brother and a sister. But that little boy had normal, round ears and normal human eyes, not at all like this creepy thing that stands behind Alex now.

"You know, it doesn't matter if you rescue me or not, Alexandria. Time will reset, and you'll all forget, but I always find a way to remember. And if you try to remember hard enough, too, if you see this existence for what it is, maybe you'll find comfort knowing you'll see everyone you love again... and again... and again... but that stopped comforting me a long time ago."

 

 

 

"I tire of it all... I want to escape the cycle... and I think you can help me figure out how to do that, Alexandria, my favorite niece."

 

Alex's confused frown deepens.

 

"I left something with you," he repeats the words from before.

 

 

 

Alexandria...

 

Her name echoes in her head, spoken not by a daydreamed up child, but by the ghost of a memory. An adult's voice. A voice she's sure she's never heard, and yet... it's there. She sees herself in different times and places, living different lives, over and over... different childhoods, different circumstances, different Alexandrias, but she always meets Daniel and has Flora, and Darshan too, and has Iris and Lupin. It doesn't make any sense. But worse, the children all fade from her life, destroyed by age while she is helpless to intervene. They are only a single page in a long, long, long story.

 

And then it's all gone, leaving her mind as cleanly as the tide rolling out.

 

 

 

She isn't sure why, but an overpowering wave of sadness washes over her body.

 

As if she'd remembered something important, something that makes her cry, but it's gone again.

 

Gardening done for the night, she goes back into the house.

 

"I'm all packed, Mom!" her daughter chirps. 

 

Shang Simla is so beautiful, so green, Alexandria falls instantly in love with it.

 

 

 She must go to the city center, and give a secret signal to a merchant, who will guide her to the potionsmith who can teach her the secrets of alchemy. She allowed Flora to accompany her to China and to the hostel, but meeting the potionsmith is something she must do alone.

 

 

Flora was told to enjoy the tourist traps, but she's instead drawn to a note on the hostel's bulletin board, which leads her on a hike further into the mountains to talk to a man named Shing Hong. 

 

"I'm here about the ancient relic."

Shing Hong knew he'd be able to lure in another stupid foreigner, but he didn't think it would be a teenage girl. For a moment, he experiences guilt. Oh wait, no, it's indigestion. He gives her a key to the old tomb. "What are you waiting for?! Adventure awaits! Get to it!"

 

 

 There are labyrinths of tunnels beneath the city. The locals won't come here, and bar tourists from entry, but with Shing Hong's keys Flora is able to sneak in.

 

There are dive wells that test her endurance, traps that test her intelligence and handiness skill... and writings that warn her to turn back if she isn't one of the chosen, but she ignores those. Some objects in the tunnels react to her touch, glow with magical auras that search through her body, but she doesn't mind. She's seen magic before, in the fortune telling caravan, and it has always been benevolent.

Shing Hong is stunned when Flora returns the requested family heirloom to him. He's sent several eager Wane McMottder wannabes to their deaths in the tomb, knowing that each time a few more traps would be set off and eventually a path would be carved to the treasure troves he desires, but... had it worked so well already? Was enough of a path cleared for this girl to walk right in and take the relic?

Flora describes the room she retrieved the relic from, and to Hong's dismay talks about the hidden door behind the room, where she found a stash of valuable gemstones. Shing Hong promised she could keep anything she found, except for the one relic, but he didn't expect to have to honor that promise. He expected to loot her remains!

She goes on to describe further chambers, rooms with, strangely, carvings of Egyptian-style mummies...

"WhAt?" Shing Hong seems aghast. "How did you get in there?"

 

As he listens to her story, he realizes this event is bigger than his little life and his excessive greed. "I must tell the Order of the Resolute Fist," he whines. "The return of Dong Huo is upon us."

"Actually my name is Flora Fleet."

Shing Hong's expression turns very serious. "Dong Huo was the scourge of many kingdoms. He is an immortal, evil spirit that resides even now deep in the heart of the Dragon Cave. In life he pillaged from our people and murdered all dissidents, and in death he still threatens to destroy us. He was sealed away, but every several generations, the seal weakens and must be renewed by a chosen one."

Flora laughs. "That is so Jimmy Sprocket."

Shing Hong is unimpressed with her doubts. He thinks for a moment, about what would sway him, if he were a chosen one. "If you are the chosen one, you will be rewarded with riches..."

"I can find more gems and stuff?"

He averts his eyes. "I didn't have the authority to give you the loot you already found. Technically it was never my property, not that anyone ever has to know. But yes. The Order of the Resolute Fist will see you never worry for wealth again. And... in the meantime, I know someone who can appraise whatever you've found, and offer you a good price for it."

 

Flora doesn't notice how late it's getting. Liang Yat Sen has just given her more money than her mother ever saw in her whole life, in the span of a few short hours worth of appraisals.

"What do you make of this Dong Huo prophecy business?"

"Don't speak that name," the merchant whispers. "Not out in the open where the eyes of the dragon can see."

Flora gathers that the citizens of Shang Simla take the Dong Huo prophecy very seriously.

 

Flora is summoned to speak with a master of the way of the Fist.

"I sense a disturbance in the mists," the master says. "Either your arrival is timely... or you have inadvertently angered the spirits. My cousin, Shing Hong, told me of your actions. You raided the tunnels as if they were nothing to you but a resource in a video game. You are a thief, just like many before you."

Flora blinks.

"Shing Hong does not care, of course. He is a disgrace to the family. But he is still family. He respects me enough to have informed me of your deeds."

"I'm really sorry... I thought-"

"What is done is done. Our path forward is clear. We must determine if you are the chosen one."

It all sounds like a load of steaming nonsense to Flora, but she's so embarrassed right now, she's willing to be roped into some nonsense if it means she can make amends.

"So umm... what does that entail?"

"You will be trained in the martial arts of the order. You will face challenges of the body and mind. Then, if your performance is up to our standards, there are hidden tombs across the world that you must get inside. If you can gain access to their innermost chambers, if you can subdue the reanimated mummies inside, you may be worthy to enter the furthest depths of Shang Simla and seal away Dong Huo's malevolent spirit once more."

"...Do I need a parent's permission?"

The master is not amused. "The trials will take time. You will be an adult woman before they are complete."

"What if I say no? Does that automatically make me not the chosen one?"

"I... am not sure," the master admits.

Alexandria doesn't know how to react to all this information.

"Apparently the caverns under Shang Simla used to be infested with vampires, and the Order of the Resolute Fist was founded to destroy them," Flora is telling her, with an overabundance of enthusiasm. "But in the process of becoming the local authority on all things supernatural they got wrapped up in this Dong Huo stuff, somehow."

Flora fidgets a little bit in the silence that follows.

Finally, her mother speaks. "You put yourself in danger, and never thought to even tell me where you were?"

Flora's smile returns. "I was scared you'd say no, and I was going to turn back if I ever felt in danger, but I didn't."

Alexandria shakes her head. "Diving in old tunnels!?" she raises her voice. "This is serious, you could have drowned! Or you could have been hurt by one of those traps, and with no one around to help you!"

Flora shows her mother the money she made today. "Well... this is for you."

"I can't take that," Alexandria whines.

"We can finally fix up the house, Mom. Please, let me train with these weirdos. I know it's weird, but frankly... you're into some weird things yourself." Flora gives her mother a pointed stare. "How did things go with the potionsmith?"

Alexandria heaves a big sigh. "I'm sorry I won't have much time to sight-see with you. I'm being instructed on how to channel my essence into this alchemy. I'm not the best student, but I have a special affinity with plants..."

"Yeah ya do," Flora agrees. Her excited little grin is undiminished.

"I've never told you this... but we have dryad lineage. I was the only one in my family to inherit any of their talents. It's not much, but... well. Never mind."

"But what?"

"I didn't expect you'd even believe me so easily."

Flora shrugs. "Why not? You're psychic and you make plants grow in impossible ways and you brew magic potions. What's one more weird thing?"

 

"Well you're not supposed to actually believe in it!"

"You... you mean it's not real? Why'd you come all the way to China to 'learn from a master potionsmith' and channel essense if it's not real?"

"It IS real, but—"

"Oh, I know the star signs and stuff are fake. But the potions and other spells are real, I've seen it—"

"Flora!" Alex snaps. "There's a reason witches hide their magic."

"Well, of course. It's because magic is illegal here. Because supernatural sims like vampires and stuff have magic, and they use it for evil." Flora's eyes widen. "Wait, are dryads evil? Are we evil? What actually is a dryad?"

Alexandria rubs her temples and sighs. The origins of dryads and plant-sims are actually hotly debated, with some evidence suggesting they are the result of extra terrestrials pollinating shrubbery. "No I'm not evil. I just... plants. I feel weird when I'm not around plants."

 

Flora's expression is blank now. "What kind of weird?"

"Just, weird, alright? I don't know how to explain it. Dryads with more advanced abilities can extend their consciousness into... plants... so they can have an awareness of what's going on some distance away... and I can manipulate plants to an extent... I'm not very good at it."

Flora laughs awkwardly. "You're not very good at explaining it either."

Alex folds her fingers together carefully. "I was told that most of my people live in colonies in the wilderness and eat trespassing sims."

 

"Holy sh*t. What? So you're plant vampires?" 

 

"Nnoo. They don't have to eat people. They just... feel like it, I guess. Cultural differences? I'm a hybrid, I'm mostly human. No green skin. Same with you. But you don't have any powers. Sorry."

Flora looks more troubled than ever. "So we're evil?"

"No! Non-human magics aren't evil, Flora. The supernatural races are... are..." she swallows, "they are what they make of themselves. Just like humans. And that makes me very uncomfortable with this order of vampire slayers, who believe you're their chosen one. What if this sealing ritual hurts you, Flora? They could be looking for anyone with a trace of magic in them, to sacrifice them or something."

Flora looks crestfallen. "The masters seem intent on training me, so I don't get hurt."

"You're a child," Alexandria snarls. 

 

"Not for much longer." Flora puffs up proudly, the gravity of the situation lost on her, apparently, as all she sees ahead is excitement and adventure. "And I intend to stop being so poor."

 

Alex looks away, tears in her eyes again. "I can see you won't let this go, so I'm going to speak to the potionsmith about the Resolute Fist. If she trusts them, maybe I can be open minded. But this hits so close to home."

"What do you mean?"

"Darshan was a vampire," Alexandria says slowly. "He broke the law by living in a non-designated place, and... he was caught and taken away. I'm not allowed to know where he is. He isn't allowed to contact me. I always thought that if I caused trouble, tried to raise awareness or anything, people would hate your brother and sister. They aren't vampires, but you know... you know how people would probably treat them, if they knew."

Flora stares as her mother sobs. She's always thought of vampires as predatory animals, lucky to not have been crushed into extinction by the humans who fear and outnumber them. Sim Nation's approach to accommodating their population seemed almost benevolent. To think someone she cared about was one of these gross creatures challenges everything Flora thought she knew, challenges things she didn't have an opinion on, things she had the luxury of not caring about. She eats the rest of her salad in shocked silence.

"I want to tell Lupin and Iris they weren't abandoned," Alexandria continues, after she stifles the tears, "but I don't know how to trust them with the truth. They're too young to understand why it should be a secret. But I feel like I'm letting their father down, by not sharing my memories and letting his children know who he was, as a person. If I can't explain why he's gone, they're just going to resent him."

Flora pokes her fork at her empty plate. "Mom... just... just tell them he disappeared, and we don't know what happened, but you know he loved Iris and he would have loved Lupin too. That's the truth. Isn't it?"