matchalovertrait

Hoot played with Ronnie when he wasn't at the bar, leaving Marina to help Annie study to retake her nursing school exams. Once she passed, she would move to Ravenwood for fourth-year clinical rotations.

No one needed to know whether getting Annie out of town was Marina's primary motivation, and she celebrated as much as everyone else when Annie passed her second test with flying colours.

(I only took it twice, but since she's not a main household sim, I was still worried because I wasn't cheating her test results and I give myself a finite amount of time with side households, generally. When she passed the second time, I was as excited as anyone!)

In Ravenwood, Nyon was thrilled - and slightly nervous - because once Annie arrived in town he planned to propose. He was sure she'd say yes, but she could say no. Until he got down on one knee and actually asked her, he'd probably sweat it.

On a cool evening in the gothic mountain town, he found Edith by her gravestone near the old well in Crow's Crossing, not far from Lord and Lady Shallot's renovated mansion.

The ghost scowled when she spotted him, her translucent form its usual shade of angry red. "You're late. Again."

"I told you, I'm on later shifts all month," he reminded her.

Edith didn't have a perfect memory. Some ghosts blocked parts of their life, so they didn't need to spend an eternity remembering things they'd rather forget. And sometimes the mind of a ghost simply wandered so long in their post-life form, they forgot the life they lived before.

What Edith had forgotten, more than anything, were details of her family. Some memories would come and go, with the right triggers, but every now and then, she forgot less important things, too.

"Do you want to catch frogs with me?"

"In a minute. I wanted to ask you something, first."

"I don't like questions," she growled.

"This is an easy one, I think. You remember Annie?"

Edith nodded. "The pretty blonde girl with men's boots."

"She just passed her third-year exam and she's moving to Ravenwood to finish nursing school next week. When she gets here, I want to propose, and I was hoping you'd let me do it here."

Edith processed his modern way of speaking, pausing before her ghostly form turned from red to green. "You want to ask her to get married at the well?"

"Annie talks a lot about you. She thinks you're as cool as I do, and I think this is the part of Ravenwood that made her want to move here."

"She's not moving for you?"

Nyon laughed. "She is, but she doesn't want to move here just to get married. I want her to feel at home here."

Edith turned up her nose. "It's swampy here. If you get down on one knee, it'll probably get wet."

"I can live with that."

"Fine," she eventually said. "You can propose here."

For the next week, Nyon passed time between caring for his patients at work, and listening to his mother recite dead languages at home.

The day Annie arrived was sunny and warm. He waited for her outside the front gate, and his lips turned into a smile when she stepped out of the taxi and looked around.

She set down her things and they went for a walk in the sunshine. Nyon had the ring in his pocket, and he couldn't wait to ask her.

"We can visit Edith anytime, Nyon. What's the hurry?"

"She's excited to see you," he said. But when they reached the well where Edith met her end, the ghostly girl was nowhere to be found.

"Edith! Annie's here. You can come out anytime."

Nyon's call was met with the sound of birds in the twisted old trees, but no Edith.

"Maybe she doesn't want to be bothered right now," Annie suggested. "I understand that. We're probably not the only people who come out here. She might be tired or overstimulated."

"You're probably right. I was hoping she'd be here, but I brought you here because I want to ask you a question."

"Ask me anything," she said sweetly, but she pulled her hand to her mouth in shock when Nyon put one knee on the swampy ground and pulled the ring from his pocket.

"Annie, I'm proud of you for passing your exams and I admire how hard you work for everything you want, and I know how important that is to you. When you saved my life back in university, I knew then that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you - when the time was right and you'd achieved goals of your own. Will you marry me, Annie Howell?"

Annie beamed, nodding enthusiastically as Nyon slipped the ring on her finger and stood. She pulled him in for a romantic kiss, basking in his touch as she realized her days would always feel like this.

"We're engaged!" she gushed. "And we're not long distance anymore."

"Congratulations."

The scowling, hollow voice echoed behind them, and they pulled apart to find Edith staring angrily into the distance. At the best of times, Edith was a moody and mischievous preteen, but something about her mood today drew Annie to her side.

"Edith, are you okay?"

Edith snarled. "I'm okay, Annie. Are you okay?"

She tried to storm off, but Nyon chased her down. "Hey, wait a minute. What's gotten into you today?"

"My mother used to say one day I'd have to get married. That's why I ran away the day I fell into the well."

Annie stepped forward again gingerly. "I'm sorry, Edith. Times were different then, but Nyon and I are only going to get married because we want to."

"His mother's rich. You're not marrying him for his money?"

Annie frowned. "I've never needed money from Nyon or his mother."

"You really love him?"

"I love him more than ever."

"What if one day I wanted to get married for love?"

"You'd need to be resurrected and grow up, first."

"So? Nyon said it's possible before."

"You really want to live again?"

Edith frowned, considering her answer before she spoke. "I probably shouldn't. My mother wouldn't know what happened to me."

At this, the young girl disappeared, and Annie and Nyon shared worried glances.

Returning home later that night, the couple found the local ghost merchant, Waylon Warez, loitering in the Specters' stone-laid mausoleum grounds.

Annie turned a curious ear to the ghost with the old-fashioned coat. "What do you know about Edith Basu?"

"I know I never like to find myself on her island so her scream can send a shiver to my nethers. But I came to town some years after her death. Locals said her mother died, grief-stricken. Said her name was Alice, and she wanders Mourningvale seeking word of all her children."

Waylon left when Annie showed no interest in his trenchcoat of elixirs, and she joined Nyon at the grave of one of his mother's former husbands.

"Nyon, we need to find Edith's mother," she said. "I think we need to help them both." ->

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Gen 1 Start | Gen 1 Summary | RIP Neal Gen 2 Start | Gen 2.1 Summary | Gen 2.2 Summary | Gen 2 Finale

NOTE: Nyon and Annie got engaged on their own after Nyon called Lavender with the ring-in-the-bag notification. Even though I wanted to get the pair engaged through plot, I still wasn't sure how to do it and the game forced my hand sooner than expected (I wanted her to finish nursing school first, and this popped up before Lavender even moved out of Brindleton Bay).