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Saturday, October 2, 2021

Prologue: Lola

 Lola spends her days alone at home, in a self imposed exile.


It wasn't a conscious decision, just the consequence of being known in the town as the former inmate of a mental institution.


It's somewhat ironic, many of the hours she spent in the asylum were in front of a window, looking to the outside world and wishing to be a part of it.


She spent her time in the institution on a easel, planning and hopping for a life post dementia. The life she leads now is not what she expected. 

Her painting are sold at a good price, she can't complain. But, what makes her paintings sell well is the same thing that keeps the townspeople from approaching her. Buying a painting from a crazy woman makes them seem important, establishing a relationship with her does not. 


Sometime she miss it. Or, more specifically, she miss some of her fellow insane inmates. The genie tweens, like she used to call them, certainly.

Blueberry Vida and Arandano Life are technically the same person, or something like that, the details escape her. The higher powers created them with the purpose of studying how the same person turns out to be when faced with different circumstances. Or that's what they told Lola, you never know what is real or not with those two.


Arandano is the more traditional of the two of them and the more laid back, he's happy being a genie and the wishes that he grants are usually the ones that people ask of him without strange interpretations or games as his counterpart usually does. He used to take her by the shoulders and start moving her to the rhythm of whatever song was playing at the time. She misses those ridiculous dances.


Bluberry likes being a genie but not in the same way as Arandano. She is fascinated with humans and their culture, and loves to make thing easier or harder for them depending on her experiments. She liked to sit beside Lola and talk about her life and experiences.


The same genies she was thinking about appeared in front of her house.


"Do you think she's in her home?"

"Where else? She hardly leaves this house." Blueberry rolled her eyes.


The doorbell woke Lola from her memories. 

"Arandano? Blueberry? What are you doing here, guys?"

"We come to visit our favorite human."

"Come on in, it's a bit cold outside despite the sun."


"Why do I feel that you have come with not very good intentions?"

"Because you know us?" Arandano asked with a cheeky grin.


"We're worried about you." Blueberry smiled more serenely than her counterpart.

"I'm okay."

"You never leave this house. I don't think that qualifies as being okay."


"The point is that we have been thinking about you and how little this town appreciates you."

"Yeah, for a people that prides themself on being strange, they aren't able to embrace real madness." Arandano shooked his head.

"I feel so flattered right now." Lola rolled her eyes.

"You should."

"I feel like I'm going to regret this, but what is the proposal?"


"So little faith she has in us."

"Maybe it's because she knows us."

"Guys..."


"Talking seriously? We've thought about granting you all those wishes you had while you were in the asylum. You always talked about everything you would do in the outside world. But, here you are, locked between these walls." Arandano told her in a soft voice that she appreciate."


Lola looked around her little living room, so dark and hopeless like her humor. She knew it was time of a change. 

The twins stood up, they could both feel that she had come to a decision.

"Here goes nothing." She said getting up from her chair, watching her guests go outside. 


"Here we are, the three of us standing here like idiots. I think I'm regretting leaving my future in your hands."


"Arandano? Are you ready? We need to fulfill the wish at the same time."

"Yes, Blue, I'm ready. On three?"


"Wait! Aren't telling me what is the wish about?!" Shouted Lola. "I thought you were going to explain to me where you're sending me before doing so!"

"It's a suprise!" Said Blueberry with glee.

"Don't, wait!"


"Oh oh." Murmured Arandona looking at his sister.

"Yeah..."

"Sorry, Lola."


"What? Why?" Shouted Lola again, then looking at her arms. "I'm orange! Why I'm orange?"

"Sorry! Seems to be a side effect of acquiring magical powers." Explained Blueberry but Lola was already gone.

"I don't think she heard you." 


"Oh, well. At least, she's going to fit in well there." She said shrugging.

"Now what?"

"I have to contact Grogu and tell him our part is done. Then maybe we can fulfill the wish of another of our old immates?"

"Oh, yes. I like that." Said Arandano thinking for a couple of seconds. "Come, Blue, I think I have the perfect canditate."


Friday, August 20, 2021

Prologue: Davin

I have had a pretty normal life even with an alien son. Davin thought while sitting in the front yard of his house. He frowned. Although, lately, I don't see him so often.


Grogu was an unexpected gift, even when he was the result of a somewhat traumatic experience.


A surprise that Davin quickly fell in love with. His alien son soon became his everything. 

The man carried the little green baby everywhere, even when he was searching among other people's scraps and trash to build his dream house.


He dated a couple of time, but nothing serious came of that. Not everyone was okay with staying in a relationship with a man with an alien baby. In the end, he chose to leave the dating scene and only had one night stands that were enough to fulfill his needs.

He was okay with his little family of two.


Watching his son transform into his own person was a delight. Grogu was a pretty tame child with an affinity to electronics that Davin suspected was related to his alien ancestors.


It was in his teenage years that Grogu began to show his more extraterrestrial side. Davin remembers the first time he saw him laying on his bed with strange signs floating around his head. Later, his son would explain that his mother had made contact through dreams where she taught him a form of communication related to their specie.


The relationship between his mother's son and Grogu began to grow in those years, and despite Davin feeling uncomfortable with that, he never denied his son the possibility of knowing about that side of his life. A few years later, his son would spend more time traveling the galaxies than at Sunset Valley.

The characteristic sound of a spaceship woke him from his reverie.


"Just when I was thinking of going to watch TV. You don't have good timing, son."

"Nothing of that, old man. I didn't take a vacation and crossed half the universe for you to ignore me in favor of that silly box."


"The silly box makes me more company than you." Davin said in a half teasing tone.

"It's good to know that you're still as grouching as ever." Said the half alien approaching the man.

"Come here and give me a hug, you green boy."


"I missed you, son. You have been abandoning me lately."

"I missed you, too, dad. I love my other family, but you know nothing compares to you."


"I suppose I can forgive you for neglecting me with a speech like that." He said smiling at his son. "Now, tell me what have you been doing."


"Well, I have had a great advance in my project."

"The one you and your mother where working on? The one you never wanted to tell me about?"

"Yes, that one. We came with a couple of discoveries that can change the life of every sim in this universe." Grogu was feeling pretty proud of himself.

"That's good! Except I don't know what you're talking about. I'm starting to think your project is something embarrassing and that's the reason you keep it as a secret."

The young man rolled his eyes at the old joke.

"Embarrassing are you, old man." 

"That's a trait you inherited from me, so you don't have a lot of room to talk." Davin smiled fondly at his son.


"Now, dad, jokes aside, tell me how you've been."

"Quite well within reasons, although my knees hurt a little more every day. Mainly, I have been enjoying the summer sun since this will be the last one I will see."

"Dad, don't be like that."

"I'm being realistic, green boy, I'm in my last elder days, you know that."


"About that, I have a gift for you."

"Gift?"


Davin opened the package to discover some sort of pink sparkling potion.

"What it's this, son?"

"It's the project mom and me were working on. You have to drink it."


Davin narrowed his eyes. "You want me to drink something Xoxxia did? Are you crazy?" 

"Dad, mom would never hurts you. She's pretty fond of you."

"Your mother and I have very different feelings for each other. And fond it's not one of mine."

"Dad..."

"What? She used a speculum on me."

"Dad! Nobody, anywhere in the universe, wants to know how they were conceived. It's gross."

"Gross was what she did."

"DAD!" Grogu interrupts him with an exasperated yell.

"Okay, okay. I'm drinking it, I'm drinking it. What is the worst that can happen to me? Die? I'm 93, I expecting it."


"I'm sparking like in a birthday." Davin looked at his legs. "And my knees stopped hurting so I guess that's a good thing."


"Yes, the changes are internal first."

"What changes? And why are you walking away?"

"It's better not to be near you when the biggest changes happen."

"Grogu! What have you made me drink?" Davin was regretting taking the potion.


"Oh my, That's not what I was expecting to happen."

"Not what you expected." Davin looked down at his hands in horror. "I'm green!"

"And young, dad. That was the gift."

The man looked at himself in the reflection of the window and saw that his son was right. He was as young as the day he had come to Sunset Valley. But green.


"Why I'm like this?"

"We discovered a young again potion. It was tested on several of us and it worked without a hitch. We assumed it would have the same effect on humans as it had on aliens, because our genetic makeups are very similar. But I think something in your human dna must have worked differently with the potion.

"You don't say." Davin whispered looking at his body, still lost in thought. Youth was not only seen on his skin but also in the way his body felt.


"My clothes have changed too."

"That never happened to us." Said Grogu approaching his father and sensing something off about him.

"So it's another side effect that the lot of you didn't know about."

"Dad..."

"What?" Answered the man still looking at himself.

"Don't you feel different?"

"Of course, I'm feeling different. I'm young again, and I'm starting to like it."

The alien looked closely at his father.

"I'm talking about something else. I'm sensing some differences in you. You don't feel human anymore."

Davin was about to answer his son when he felt something appear in his pocket that had been empty a few seconds ago.


"A magic wand? What the heck..." 

He couldn't finish the sentence because as soon as he came into contact with the wand a bright mist began to surround him. 

"You're a witch." Whispered his son.

Almost as if he didn't control his own actions, Davin started waving the wand.


"I guess you only wanted to make me young. Not young, green and a witch?"

"Yeah, but well one of three is pretty good odds, right?"

"I don't want to know what you consider bad odds, green boy."

"Now, you're a green boy too, dad." Said Grogu smiling seeing his father joke. That was a sign that the man was in a better mood than he appeared.


"Now, tell me. Why do your mother and you wanted to make me young again?"

"I believe, and she agrees, that my birth put your life on standby."

"What?" Davin asked confused.

"I think that if I hadn't been in your life, it would have been different, maybe you would have met someone and started a big family."

"I have a good family, I don't need for it to be big." Said the man with narrowed eyes.

"I know that, but I want that for you and deep down you want it too. But I'm not talking only about that. You could have dedicated yourself to doing other things like a full time job or having other experiences. But your life revolved around me." Grogu said taking a deep breath and looking his father in the eyes. "And I thank so much for making me your priority. I just want to compensate you."

"You're enough for me, son." 


"Do you trust me?" Grogu  walked away from his father while asking the question.

"My instincts tell me yes, but with what happened in the last few minutes..."

"Dad, I would never." Davin interrupted him.

"I know, my green boy. I'm only teasing."


"Although it's worrying me the gestures you're doing, the sames you had as child when you were about to do something that you should not."

"You know me well, dad."

"Grogu..."


"I love you, old man. We are going to see each other again, I will visit you from time to time."

"What are you talking about, son?"

"Have a good life."

"Grogu! Why Am I sparking again? "What are y..."

Those were the last words the alien heard from his father before he disappeared.


For a few seconds, Grogu could only stare at the empty space Davin had left. Then he shock his head and thought about what was the next mission he had to fulfill on the planet.

"I think it was to catch some goldfish. Mom wanted some for her new project." The young man said out loud. "Now where can I get a fishing rod around here?"


Still thinking about where to buy the item, Grogu climbed into his spaceship. He looked with some nostalgia at his childhood home from his seat in the vehicle. He didn't know when he would see it again, and now that his father was no longer in Sunset Valley there was little point in visiting the town.


But despite that, he knew that his choice had been correct. His father deserved a second chance at a full life.

*****

Next: Lola's Prologue.