Natalya - Chapter 1

Natalya was staring at the mansion she had inherited...it hadn't seemed so huge and decadent when her great grandmother and Marta were alive... but now, she had to keep the promise she had made to her grand grandmother: she had to take care of the house. Not to mention, she had to take care of herself. 

Natalya had never felt so alone in the world...if only Marta had been alive...the both of them would have managed. She would have helped her go on, overcome the grief, grow up... Natalya was only a teen ager after all...if only...but life had chosen differently.

Despite the huge hollow in her heart and her deepest fears trying to find a way to overcome her, Natalya had no choice: she had to lock the sorrow and the fear somewhere at the back of her mind and she had to go on.

Once feelings were locked far away, only rationality could save her.

First of all, she needed to make sure nobody suspected Marta was dead and nobody came to investigate her house. 

Being a good school girl was the main point of the plan. In this case, there would have been no need for the school to contact her non existent family.

Secondly, she needed to find a way to get money to survive.

At the moment a part-time job was out of discussion. Colleagues and boss might ask about her family and stuff, and she couldn't risk uneasy questions.

So, she decided to wander around and try to collect things she could sell... mushrooms were quite a good deal, for example.

Autumn was coming closer and the usual fog surrounding the town was becoming thicker as the days passed. 

Natalya had managed to stick to her plan. Studying, cleaning the house and collecting and selling things had kept her mind busy and her appearance safe.

But deep inside she was suffering. Although she was starting to get used to her new life and the huge, creepy mansion she had to live in, although her strong nature helped her facing her life difficulties, Natalya knew something in her life was missing - she needed something more.

Being so busy concealing her true conditions, she had not made any friends at school, nor outside it. Everybody considered her as a bit of a freak, a shy girl who always dressed in black and wore a mournful expression on her face.

But then again, she had noticed how many weird characters walked by in her same school, so how she could really be considered a weirdo she couldn't understand...probably the other kids were too scared of the  non-human-like guys to take fun of them...

The thing was, although she pretended she didn't care - she had more important business to think about - , not having a single friend in the world was painful.

One day during one of her collecting missions, Natalya ended up in some kind of park close to the gypsy caravan where people from the neighbourhood were having picnics and grilling food.

Natalya stopped by to buy a muffin from a little girl who was so proud to sell her cakes although she hadn't sold one..

Nobody had bought anything from the girl's table and she felt sorry, she definitely knew what was like to be considered "invisible".

But then a girl she had seen at school approached her and started to talk to her... Natalya couldn't believe it! She was having a normal teenage conversation with another teen ager like herself...

That was totally unexpected and she felt a wave of warmth melt a bit of the icy self she had come to be.

She talked a lot with Daydream Ivy, but eventually had to leave - it was getting dark and she had spent the whole afternoon enjoying herself instead of sticking to her original plan...

The strict rules she had decided herself were now reminding her that she wasn't a "normal" teenager after all, and she needed to sell more stuff in order to stick to the promise she had made to her beloved great grandmother.

So she headed home, but on the way she noticed that the new store was still open...

curiosity took over the strict plan for the evening and she entered the shop...finding herself in what looked like an alchemy store!

The evening air had chilled her to the bones, so she took a moment for herself and relaxed on the rocking chair by the fire...

an alchemy store..they would for sure need her mushrooms... that night it was too late and she needed to go home but she promised to herself she would come back another day and investigate more...

Coming back to the darkened mansion was the worst moment of the day. However successful or - quite unlikely - cheerful Natalya's day had been, her spirits would definitely sink once home as the mansion was even creepier at dark - given that there were just a few lights inside, which Natalya didn't switch on in order to lower the bills.

The workshop that had once belonged to her great grandfather seemed to be the only place that could enlighten Natalya's evenings. She found out that she loved working with scrap metal - and her great grandfather had left plenty of those - and creating something with her own hands made her feel proud of herself.

The days went by and Natalya even started to like her routine. In the morning she would prepare herself breakfast, she loved making pancakes or waffles.

Then she would eat in her great grandmother room, to honour the last days they had spent together.

Then it was school time, unless something unexpected happened and needed to be fixed up....

After school it was homework time...

Natalya was really tired sometimes and only her strong will made her go on without any complaint...

If you think about it, she told to herself, living alone isn't that bad. No parents ordering you what to do and when to do it, no set time for bed or breakfast, total freedom and the house all to yourself...

That didn't sound too convincing though...but she didn't have any other choice, had she?

Then one morning she decided the mourning period was over. Despite she still missed her great grandmother dearly, she had got over the grieving process and decided to set aside the black dress.

She had forgotten how nice wearing the colourful school uniform could be...

Mourning time over, clothes changed, Natalya felt a change in her life was in order as well...

As first thing, after school she kept her promise about the alchemy store and went to have a closer look... What had at first seemed to be an old shelf for old books turned out to be an alchemy station. 

Natalya opened the huge dusty book that was on display and read through the thousands of recipes: a lot of ingredients for the potions listed in the book were things she had collected in her wanderings...

A sudden idea came to her mind: she would make more money if she sold elixirs made with mushrooms instead of selling the mushrooms themselves! 

Step three of her plan then became the mastering of the alchemy skill.

She spent the whole afternoon learning the art of alchemy but as soon as she had learnt the first recipe her phone rang... it was her friend Daydream!

Natalya left the shop and went to see her friend, who apparently was in need to talk and had none to talk to... she felt bad for her friend but very happy for herself...at last, someone was considering her as a friend, and she had someone to call "friend"! 

Probably Daydream had realised something was wrong with Natalya's life, but was sensitive enough not to ask questions, and Natalya was extremely grateful for that.

So the girls spent the evening watching TV and having girly talks...

At last Natalya was spending an evening as the teenager she was, no cleanings or working. No creepy house that creaked in the dark. Nothing. Just a normal girl in a normal house...

Having fun with her friend Daydream made her forget her condition and worries, at least for an evening, and made her believe she was just a teen age girl as everyone else.

But the magic had to end at some point, and Natalya had to call a taxi to go back to her dark empty mansion that was her home...

As usual she took refuge in the workshop, but she had had such a lovely evening she wouldn't let the decadence of the house make her happy feeling sink this time.

She managed to stay in such high spirits that she even created her first invention! Which unluckily was worth only 5 or 6 simoleons... but still better than nothing!

Natalya was determined to keep her spirits up and to make a well deserved change in her life... anyway she would try, at least...

The next evening Natalya decided to organise a party. She had earned a little bit of money from selling mushrooms and she decided she could afford an old fashioned radio for the living room. She moved one of the remaining ceiling lamps in the room which, given the lack of furniture, turned out to be a perfectly creepy dance room. It would be appropriate for her guests, she thought.

Natalya had been right, the most people in her school were some kind of supernatural beings, and the thought of being in their company made her feel less "weird".

After becoming friends with Daydream, Natalya had been more relaxed with the other schoolmates as well and, although she hadn't made friends with anyone else, she had at least stopped avoiding the others on purpose.

She had even started to say "hi" to some of her schoolmates...and that was how she decided who would be invited to her party.

She thought supernatural sims wouldn't mind a creepy house like her own....nor would that Bailey girl who was always hanging out with the vampire guy she had forgotten the name of.

Being mere acquaintances, - she didn't even remember the names of all of them! - her guests didn't really talk to her, but she was grateful they had come to her party anyway. It was a start. Besides, they hadn't asked questions about her house or her family and that was a plus.

By the end of the evening though, she had found a way to socialize with the werewolf guy, apparently he liked to play fetch! She thought it was kind of cute... although in a weird kind of way...

For some reason her guests decided to sleep in the garden. Maybe the house was too creepy even for them or maybe they just liked sleeping in the nature...who knew what the habits of these supernatural beings were? 

Natalya joined them in the garden and before falling asleep she felt a rush of pleasure and gratitude going through her: despite feeling guilty about wasting money in an old radio and in the pizza - not to mention about the neglected cleanings and homework -, for the first time in ages she felt totally and completely happy with herself.

She couldn't say she had made new friends, of course. Apart from Daydream, the others had barely spoken to her - or barked, in the case of the werewolf playing fetch. But they had come to her party. They hadn't asked questions. Maybe they also had life stories or secrets that they didn't want to share, and that's why they were respectful of others' private things.

Three humans, two vampires and a werewolf. The party wasn't the most usual one...and that was why Natalya felt totally at ease with them...

Lying in the sleeping bag under the foggy and probably starry sky, Natalya decided that the promise she had made to her great grandmother didn't prevent her from having friends. She had been too strict with herself - if she was careful, she could even allow the right and carefully chosen people to come close to her.....

To be continued...