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Following in Your Hoofprints - A 50 Foal Challenge
KaytayRoall
Posts: 923 Member
Hello and welcome to my second attempt at the 50 foal challenge!
If anyone is interested, my first try, brought to a premature end by computer problems, can be found here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/742492.page
The rules for this challenge are here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/450566.page (I will be playing alternate #2 with 5 mares having 10 foals each)
A few quick notes before I get to the actual story. First off, while I will try to adhere to the rules of the challenge, I'm going to put the telling of the story first. For instance, I used freerealestate to get the game started with an inherited home that cost a bit more than she started with, but then used familyfunds to reduce my founder to almost no money and fully intend for her to make up the difference once she's started earning some simoleons. Secondly, I'm playing on a Mac which apparently has some problems rendering the textures on horses. This means some of my horses, including my founding mare, unfortunately, will show odd lines all over their bodies. I almost gave up when I saw this was the case and haven't been able to find any sort of fix for it. However, the first foal was born without them and it is my hope that all of the horses born in game will be the same. Here's hoping.
Anyway, I think that's it for rules and preamble. So, on with the story!
If anyone is interested, my first try, brought to a premature end by computer problems, can be found here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/742492.page
The rules for this challenge are here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/450566.page (I will be playing alternate #2 with 5 mares having 10 foals each)
A few quick notes before I get to the actual story. First off, while I will try to adhere to the rules of the challenge, I'm going to put the telling of the story first. For instance, I used freerealestate to get the game started with an inherited home that cost a bit more than she started with, but then used familyfunds to reduce my founder to almost no money and fully intend for her to make up the difference once she's started earning some simoleons. Secondly, I'm playing on a Mac which apparently has some problems rendering the textures on horses. This means some of my horses, including my founding mare, unfortunately, will show odd lines all over their bodies. I almost gave up when I saw this was the case and haven't been able to find any sort of fix for it. However, the first foal was born without them and it is my hope that all of the horses born in game will be the same. Here's hoping.
Anyway, I think that's it for rules and preamble. So, on with the story!
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Erika Ward was an orphan. A sad and unfortunately not uncommon story. Abandoned at birth, she spent her childhood going from one foster home to another. Then her teenage years were spent at a community "home" that was far from home-like. Once high school was behind her, she worked a depressingly dead-end job at the supermarket to afford a tiny little studio apartment of her own. She had no idea what she wanted from life, her early dreams all having had to do with finding her family and later years with solitude and independence, which she had achieved, in a limited sort of way.
So it was quite a shock to her to be approached one day at the end of a long shift by a man in a suit who identified himself as a lawyer and the executor of a will. A will which named her.
He informed her that a recently deceased family member had left a residence to her in a distant town she had never heard of called Hidden Springs. If she wanted to claim the property, she needed to depart immediately. She hardly even paused to consider as all her childhood dreams of family resurfaced in a bittersweet surge.
She took a train most of the way, but there was no public transportation out to the remote town, so she had to take a cab. She cringed as she told the driver the address the lawyer had given her and he gave her an estimate for the trip. She wouldn't have much money left when she got there.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting. A mansion? A cozy cottage? Her family to rush out to greet her when she got there? An empty little ranch house with a run-down barn behind it hadn't been it, though. She shook off a bit of disappointment. This place was all hers and far more than she'd had just a day ago. And her first link to her family. Forcing herself to think positively, she reminded herself she had always wanted to adopt a pet and this was the perfect home for that.
Taking a quick tour, she actually did find herself becoming more excited about her new home. Home. A place just for her. She found a door in the kitchen which lead out into the backyard and went to investigate.
A fenced in area for a garden. Gardening wasn't exactly her sort of thing, but it did suit the place. Then she went to take a closer look at the barn. This was actually pretty exciting. Like an adventure.
What she found in the barn came as a complete shock. A horse?! No one had mentioned a horse! Her mind raced, scrambling to remember the lawyer's exact words. "…property as is, blah blah blah, legalese… and all belongings contained therein…" Did a horse count as a belonging? She supposed it did. But what was she supposed to do with a horse?
She approached cautiously and was startled when the horse butted her shoulder with its head. For a moment she went stiff with surprise, but then she lightly placed her hand on the horse's cheek and was amazed by the gentle living warmth and smooth fur she felt from that small touch.
She felt a stirring of affection in her heart, but then shook her head. "Woah, girl, what are you thinking?" she said aloud to herself. "You don't know the first thing about horses except that they cost a lot to take care of--and you don't have any money." She looked sadly at the gorgeous mare and finally noticed the nameplate on the stall, which read 'Serai.' She smiled. It was an exotic name, beautiful and full of life and mystery, a perfect match for the horse it belonged to. "I'm sorry, Serai, it's not that there's anything wrong with you--you're gorgeous. I'm just not fit to take care of you. I'm sure we can find you a much better home." She remembered passing a building surrounded by fences and horse-related equipment on the way in to town, it was just down the road. She would take Serai there.
After a bit of fiddling, she figured out how to put a bridle on the horse and led her to the equestrian center. She hesitated at the door, though. Suddenly her mind filled with reasons not to sell Serai. What if she had misunderstood and Serai wasn't really hers to sell? What if keeping the horse was part of the will? What if… What if… What if I'm supposed to keep her? No, no, no, this is for the best, she reminded herself.
As it turned out, she needn't have worried. She finally dragged herself through the double doors, feeling thoroughly uncertain and out of place. Fortunately there was a person at a desk immediately inside and she approached him, still leading Serai. He looked up at her with an expectantly bored expression.
"Um, hi, I'm here to, well, sell this horse, I guess," she said.
The man looked blandly from her to Serai. "That horse?"
"Uh, yeah."
He blinked and gave her a condescending look. "Your mare was bred to one of our stallions not long ago. Her pregnancy may not be showing yet, but it will soon."
"Pregnant?" Erika asked blankly.
"Yes. With foal." He poked at his computer a bit, then swiveled the monitor around to show her a picture of another horse, a stallion, she supposed. "Bred to Charlie on… this date." When Erika showed no more sign of understanding, he sighed. "We don't purchase pregnant mares. Our facilities are not made to accommodate them. You'll have to wait until she's dropped the foal and sell them separately," he explained to her slowly, as if to a dullard.
"Oh, right," Erika said slowly, then led Serai back out. "Now what are we going to do?" Serai nickered at her. "Right, I guess we go home, there's nothing else for us to do here."
Back home, she went to put Serai back in the stall, but somehow managed to put herself between the horse and the wall of the stall. Her heart lurched and she couldn't suppress a startled yelp as she had a sudden reminder of just how large and powerful Serai was in comparison to herself.
Serai was quite familiar with this routine, however, and entered the stall without a fuss as Erika took a deep breath and calmed down.
Gathering her courage now that Serai was in the stall, Erika approached again and stroked her soft nose.
"It'll be alright," she told the mare reassuringly. "We'll figure something out." Of course, it was Erika who was really in need to reassuring.
With Serai settled, she decided to go in to town. Maybe she could find work. Or something.
She roamed aimlessly around the unfamiliar town for most of the afternoon. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, if she was even looking for anything at all. Eventually she found herself wandering into a consignment shop at the far end of town. Not that buying anything would solve any of her problems, she thought as she opened the door. Then she looked around inside and that very sensible thought disappeared from her mind.
She had always had a special love for music. When she was younger, she'd tried making her own, using any available surface for tapping and drumming out beats. The other orphans had made their protests to such a racket known and it had been years since she had thought about it. Now she had found an instrument right in front of her and her fingers all but itched to try to play it. She shot a questioning look at the cashier who just gave her a shrug and waved her hand in a lazy show of permission.
As Erika plucked out her first twangy chords, the cashier looked at her askance, but didn't say anything.
Erika stayed there playing until the lights suddenly went out around her.
"Look, I'm trying to close here," the cashier said to her testily. "Are you going to buy that thing or not?"
Erika could feel how thin her wallet was and looked down at the guitar sadly. "No, I guess not."
"Fine, I'm out of here," the cashier told her and was out the door before Erika had even put down the guitar. Well, remembering her own days as a cashier, she supposed she could understand.
With none of her problems solved, but everywhere closed for the night, Erika headed home.
She was used to a diet of microwave dinners, but realized she didn't even have a microwave to heat one up. Cereal it was, then.
What do people do for fun around here? she found herself wondering when she was done eating but not quite ready for bed yet. No TV, no computer, no games or other people around.
Then her gaze fell on the bookshelf and with a shrug she grabbed the first book that came under her hand.
Opening it up, she realized it was a cookbook. Not exactly entertaining, she thought. Then she noticed the scrawls and notes all over the margins of the book. She felt a sudden pang in her chest. Someone in her family had written these. Her mother, maybe? She kept reading just to see those tiny tidbits that were connections to her flesh and blood, a changed quantity here, a possible substitution there. She continued reading until her eyelids began to sag. It had been a very long day and it was past time she get some sleep.
There had always been noise at the orphanage. Babies cried through the night or kids snuck midnight snacks--minus the quiet part of sneaking. Erika had shared a room with several others, including a very prodigious snorer. So she had learned to sleep though just about anything.
This sometimes meant waking to considerable surprises.