Aeryn Faye
“Dre,” Aeryn called up into the tree. “Dre, you have to come down eventually. Aren’t you hungry or something?”
The little boy shook his head, continuing to stare out into the evening sky.
“Alright, fine, you aren’t hungry. But, seriously, you do need to come down. It’s totally raining.”
The boy sat and stared for a few moments more before quietly responding, “Mommy’s sad again.”
Aeryn slapped her forehead in frustration. “Oh, not this again, Hadrian! I mean fucking hell, its bad enough to have one moody bitch in the house. We don’t need another one.”
“You said a bad word,” the little boy answered.
“I said a shit-fuck assload of bad words! Now come down!”
“You’re angry,” the little boy said.
“I’m not angry, Hadrian,” Aeryn sighed and rolled her head around on her neck. “I’m frustrated as all hell, because I have a drunken mother and a little brother who would prefer to live with squirrels. But I’m not angry.”
“Yes, you are,” he countered. “You’re angry with Mommy for being sad. And you’re angry at Daddy for dying. You’re angry at me for… for being me.”
Aeryn stared up at the small figured whose silhouette was fading in the increasing darkness. She blinked as raindrops hit her face and ran into her eyes. She lowered her head and closed her eyes, wondering how much it would cost for a plane ticket out of the country. She could find a job. Get her own place. Never have to deal with her family ever again. She let the image of herself living on her own simmer behind her eyelids before brushing them out of her mind.
“Dre,” she called, eyes still closed, “I love you more than you can even know. You’re my brother. And sometimes our situation does piss me off, but nothing you can do can ever really make me angry. Except you staying in that damn tree. Now what do I have to do to get you to come inside?”
“No more bad words for the rest of the year,” the little boy said from right in front of her.
Aeryn’s eyes flew open as she jumped back in surprise, but quickly recovered. She wasted no time in giving her brother a once over, making sure he free of scraps, bruises, or… twigs. He was timid thing with a perpetual slouch, who preferred to spend his time as far away from other human beings as possible. Instead he chose the company of books, trees, animals, and himself, but his tendencies didn’t always make for a very presentable appearance.
“Surprisingly twig free,” she said, “But your price is much too steep. I’ll agree to no more bad words for the rest of the day.”
“The day’s over. The rest of the month.”
“The rest of the week, not including the weekend.”
“Two weeks, including the weekends, or I’ll get back in the tree.”
“Alright, Alright! You win,” Aeryn said, smiling. “You run a hard bargain.”
The little boy smiled in return.
“Give me a hug, you tree-hopping jerk.”
The boy’s smile became a wide grin as he ran up to hug her.
She leaned down towards him, but as she did, an overwhelming feeling of sadness and hopelessness seemed to hit her in the chest with the force of a two-by-four. Tears welled in her eyes as the strength of the torment doubled her over. It was all she could do but pushed the little boy away from her. It felt as if the sensation was emanating from him in waves that bombarded her, forcing her on her knees.
She let her body flop to the ground, her jeans soaking in the moisture from the dirt.
“Aer?” the little boy called to her meekly.
She let out a ragged breath and tried to regain equilibrium as the agonizing feelings seemed to seep out of her body and back into the small figure standing in front of her. She had never felt anything so terrible in her life.
The little boy looked down at her with an expression mixed with guilt, worry, and seasoned understanding. “You feel it too?” he asked quietly.
Aeryn took a deep breath and looked up into the eyes of her younger brother. “Hadrian, what is that?” she whispered.
The boy rubbed his neck uneasily, clearly uncertain if he should give her an answer.
“Hadrian,” Aeryn breathed. “You have to tell me.”
The boy looked away from her gaze, his face pinched with anxiety. “It’s… It’s Mommy.”
——————————————————————————————————————
*Outside Info: Aeryn is a Channler, a psychic who can channel the auroric energy of proximal psychics and gain the use of their abilities for a limited period of time.
*Writer’s note: I do apologize for the stupid lighting. My computer doesn’t handle lighting mods very well, so I have to deal with the Maxis brand that either lights up everything or nothing. And officially hate working with child sims. They’re apparently Maxis brand also. They either do everything or nothing.
“…and a little brother who would prefer to live with squirrels.” LOL! Seriously.
It’s interesting to see some background with these two. So their dad is dead and their mum is an alcoholic. That explains a bit about Aeryn, at least. It’s cute to see Hadrian as a sensitive boy… before everything got all messed up and twisted.
I hear you about child sims. They are seriously annoying–very few mods work with them, sigh.
Mao
December 7, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Yep, Aeryn’s overprotectiveness when it comes to Hadrian has a strong basis, being that she had to take over the reigns as the ‘parent’ early on. It would have no doubt gotten stronger after this incident, when she actually experiences what little Hadrian had to put up with on a regular basis. It knocked her off her feet, although, clearly, Hadrian had learned how to manage it.
And Hadrian grows up from this asocial, timid, shy boy into… Hadrian.
I actually rewrote about 3 of my character background stories because I didn’t want to try and deal with the characters as children. The ones who came into their powers as babies and toddlers, holy hell, it’s like trying to use metal as molding clay. Because of this, a few more of my characters are going to be coming into their powers as teens. It doesn’t effect the story line too much, but it definitely change my original ideas about the whole thing.
Veron
December 8, 2008 at 12:44 am
Oh yeah, definitely do more of these. It’s a lovely character study.
And I never realized that Aeryn was so much older than Hadrian.
Are psychic powers random or hereditary?
Penelope
December 8, 2008 at 10:38 am
Yep, he’s her baby brother. They’re only about 4-ish years apart, but Sim years are so fuzzy, it’s hard to show the difference between an 10 year old and a 14 year old. The main story line is running while they are both in their early thirties/ very late twenties (29 and 33 to be exact).
It’s hereditary, but it’s a coin toss, like anything genetic. Hadrian and Aeryn had a regular father and a weakly psychic mother, who we’ll meet in Hadrian’s bio. Generally, people with psychic/latent parents are psychic/latent themselves, but it’s not a guarantee. It’s possible for psychic/latents can be born to non-psychic parents, although you can probably trace them back to someone who was psychic. It’s also possible for psychics to have regular kids. But the stronger the psychic, the more likely it is that they’d have a psychic baby.
The more of these that I do, the more it should be explained, especially through some of the family interations. There are also a lot of explanations in upcoming chapters.
Veron
December 8, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Aeryn and Hadrian are two of my favorite, it must have been really hard for Aeryn to accept the death of her father, her mother alcoholism and of course it must have been even harder to care for her little brother… She has always been very protective of him, it is understandable that she is trying so hard to find him again!
s@ndy
April 19, 2009 at 12:25 am
S@ndy – They’re background is a pretty important aspect of their relationship. Aeryn also felt like she had to protect him, almost to her own detriment. They’re past comes up a lot in the upcoming story!
Veron
April 20, 2009 at 8:57 am