#morrigan.text

And then Rocky comes home! He's alive!! But he's alone, the sole survivor. Adrian can't even imagine what 46 years alone would be like. No one to watch him sleep. Their heart breaks.

But he wasn't completely alone! He made a friend. A leaky space blob that he calls "Friend Grace". All of Erid (and Rocky) would be dead if not for Friend Grace.

And Rocky, for his part, is so attached to Grace that he can't leave the space elevator. He's the savior of Erid, and he can't even set foot on it. That's a problem. Not just for optics (people want to see the savior of Erid! They want to hear about his adventures!) but for Adrian. They want their mate home.

But this leaky space blob can't survive on Erid. And even more importantly, he's dying. So the brightest minds get together, the second largest Thrum in Eridian history. (Both this and the largest involved Rocky, which Adrian finds amusing. He always did have a talent for finding trouble.) And they figure it out! They can save the leaky space blob! (Friend Grace, Rocky corrects them.)

But he can't live on that tiny spaceship forever. And Adrian wants Rocky to come home. To be able to watch him sleep. So they put their everything into making a home for Grace. They lead the project. Not just because they are one of the best engineers on Erid (the best, Rocky would say), but because while all of Erid owes their lives to Grace, Adrian owes something more. Grace saved their mate. Saved Rocky. He gave up his only chance to go home so that Rocky could come home. The very least Adrian can do is give him a home on Erid.

And it takes years, but they do it!! A dome on the surface where Grace can live. And finally (FINALLY) Rocky can spend more than a day or two on the surface without pacing anxiously, carapace tilted towards the space elevator and the ship docked at the top.

Throughout all of this, Adrian gets to know Grace, and it turns out they like him. More than they were expecting. They can see why he and Rocky got along. Rocky has always been a bit of an oddball among Eridians, even before his nearly half a century of isolation in space, but he and Grace are perfect for each other. And as much as Adrian wishes they could truly understand what happened to Rocky out there, they can't. There is a kind of comfort that can only come from someone who gets it, and Grace gets it. Adrian is just glad Rocky has someone who he can lean on (although in most cases it's Grace doing the leaning, at least physically. Erid's gravity is HARD on him, at first.)

And if someone does notice and come looking for them, they lash out at anyone who tries to help them.

"Get the fuck away from me." "Whumpee, you're bleeding." "I don't care. Fuck off."

And thinking about once the team knows about this habit of theirs: "Whumpee started limping this afternoon." "Shit, our last fight was days ago. How long have they been hiding this?" "I don't know. They won't let me near them. But if it's to the point where they can't hide it... I'm worried." "Don't let them out of your sight. I don't want a repeat of last time."

But until the team learns about it... lots of fun you can have.

I'm imagining a whumpee coming back from a mission or something and avoiding the others for a few days. It's not unusual. Whumpee's never social at the best of times, let alone after a stressful mission. But when the absences tick over into almost a week, the team starts to get worried. Usually whumpee at least says something.

So they go and check on them, and find whumpee dangerously ill. Like, "you should have been in the ER yesterday" ill.

Imagine the guilt the team feels for not checking in sooner. Imagine how surprised and confused whumpee would be to wake up alive in a hospital/infirmary bed.

I was tagged by @starlightpixels. Thank you!!! I have so many favorite sims, so I'm actually going to do this for both of my boys, Rook and Carrion.

their traits* *None of my OC sims actually have accurate in-game traits since I mess around with CAS poses so often, but I'm going to choose what their traits would be if they were accurate.

Carrion: Gloomy, Hot-headed, Active, Loner, Socially Awkward Runners-Up: Paranoid, Unflirty, Loves Outdoors, Adventurous, Glutton, Loyal. Rook: Adventurous, Chased by Death, Child of the Ocean, LOYAL Runners-Up: Paranoid, Self-Assured, Unflirty, Cat Lover, Kleptomaniac, Shady.

a typical day in their life

Carrion: Follow the party around and try to help them. Usually fuck it up in some way. Piss someone off. Punch something. Possibly turn into a giant Delirium monster. Try not to think about Theodore and/or Orion. Rook: Lie. Do something stupidly reckless. Get hurt. Lie about it. Make his friends concerned about him. Say he's fine (lie). Possibly get himself killed. Not sleep due to demon nightmares. Try not to think about Sigmar.

a bit about their family

Carrion: His parents (probably, hopefully) died in the destruction of Drakkenheim when he was 10. He was rescued by Theodore. Age 15/16 he was reunited with Theodore and met Beren. A couple years later he met Orion. At age 20 shit went tits up and he was alone until meeting the party at age 25. He doesn't think of them as his family though. Rook: He never knew his birth mother and believes she doesn't/didn't care about him (not strictly true). His father, Lord Alistair Lockwood, was a horrible piece of shit, as were his three older half-brothers, Silas, Byron, and Theo. At age 17 he ran away and joined the crew of the Tide Breaker under Captain Zara Fairweather. He also befriended Jay. At age 23 he was kidnapped by Captain Wolf. He escaped at age 25 and lived alone in the Feywild for several months before meeting the party (and most importantly, Warren) at age 26. A few weeks after meeting them he also met Sigmar. (Rook generally thinks of blood family as a Bad Thing, and does not refer to his friends as family even though they are much more of a family than any of his actual relatives ever were.)

a bit about their close relationships and friends

Carrion: Theodore saved his life as a kid and later follow through on his promise to let him join the Silver Order. He trained Carrion as his squire. Carrion befriended two other young recruits, Beren and Orion. Unfortunately Carrion ended up attacking and possibly killing Orion and was left chained to die, chained to a cliff. None of them know he's still alive, and he also is terrified of Theodore now and lowkey wants to kill him. :3 There's also Valeska, who was the closest thing he'd had to a friend in 5 years before he fucked it up (and then made it WORSE). She'll at least talk to him again now, but she's still beyond pissed. (She was so angry it partially undid a Modify Memory spell that had been cast on her.) Rook: The closest and most important person in his life for 6 years was his mentor-captain, Zara. But she wasn't really his FRIEND. That honor goes to Jay, the surgeon's mate on the ship. After being separated from those two for over 3 years, Rook met the party and got especially close to Warren, the werewolf gunslinger. He also gained a new friend and mentor in Sigmar. Warren died and Sigmar turned out to be a corpse puppet, but Rook did at least get reunited with Zara and Jay! Well. He was reunited with Jay for all of like, 16 hours (most of which he was unconscious for) before she was eaten by a giant snake. She's alive again but stuck as a bird, and Rook needs a Wish to get her back. There's also Lady Kiriona (aka Kiki), Zara's cat. She likes Rook a lot and was very happy to see him again when he turned up in Xen.

their goals in life

Carrion: Survive. Maybe kill Theodore. Get Valeska to stop being mad at him. Rook: Kill Wolf. Save Jay. See Zara again. Protect his friends at all costs.

Tagging

I mean, think about it. You vow to be together “‘til death does us part” and then you give them a way to escape death. You’re literally saying “even death could not keep me from you” or “I will never let you go”.

And of course the more expensive the ring, the more secure the promise. Splurging on a ring isn’t just vanity. It’s literally life insurance. (Or should I say life assurance.)

And even if you can’t afford a 300gp ring, diamonds are still the best choice for a stone. That “cheap” 100gp stone? Crush that up and you have a free casting of Greater Restoration. (If a larger diamond is life insurance/assurance, this is health insurance/assurance.)

Assuming that (as per my typical worldbuilding) a simple Lesser Restoration isn’t enough to cure more serious diseases, and given the common practice of making the client pay for the materials, a set-aside diamond could be the difference between life and death for someone who doesn’t have access to that kind of money.