Last Days of Vacation

“Townie” Star Broke had, or at least had had a crush on Asher Fier. He seemed hardworking and was stupidly charismatic. Thus, ages ago, when she was young, she agreed to become a surrogate mother for Asher and Adelise. Adelise loved children, but Asher wanted more than she cared to be pregnant with, so while she would have preferred adoption, she was okay with surrogacy as she knew he had some unique abilities he was looking to pass on.

Perhaps sadly and despite not knowing him well (at all!), Star spent most of her years pining over Asher, as she seemed to hope he would leave Adelise and live with her… But since she was naturally unflirty, hated the thought of confessing, and never dared to do anything, much less ask Asher to divorce Adelise, she never made any progress. She didn’t even achieve disillusionment.

Now, she was getting really old. She didn’t have other relatives to live with and as she was Dawn and Dysis’ biological mother, she moved in with the Fiers.

They were glad to have her as none of them wanted to hear that the girls’ bio mom died lonely and poor.

The three girls (Dawn, Deli (not pictured), and Dysis (not pictured)) still had a few days before their first university term began, so the family as a whole was still in vacation mode, but maybe not so much perfectionist Deli and ambitious Dysis. Dawn, though, was enjoying life as pictured above.

The next day, Deli wanted to get ahead so she got her course books early, and before the sun rose and before she even dressed, she went to her favorite spot on the deck to begin her homework.

As the sun was rising, her sister, Dyna, and her mother, Adelise, came to join her. After the sun rose, the three of them were still there. Deli was extremely uncomfortable and on fire, but trying to ignore it because the weather was beautiful and she wanted to be outside. Adelise forced a smile as she knew drawing attention to an obvious problem wouldn’t help—her daughter would go inside by herself soon, surely.

Dyna also tried not to say anything because vampirism and the sun were sensitive topics for Deli, but she couldn’t fake a smile. Instead, she stared at her journal, praying her sister would go inside and not just die.

Deli did go inside and she was fine, but the incident was enough to unnerve Adelise even though she was prepared for the worst sort accidents. If the Reaper came for one of her children early, she’d see that he resurrect that child immediately. This was the sort of thing that made Adelise glad to be old. The experience one gained after living more than a century was useful.

Adelise had had enough for the moment, though. She went to the bar, whipped up a Sunlight Reversal Cocktail (again, more than 100 years of life gave her many skills in many things) and gave it to her daughter.

Adelise: Drink this and get dressed. Everyone’s going to the Ohan’ali Town beach. Also—I’ve never said this before and you’ll never hear me say this again, but put your homework away.

As can be observed in the background above, poor Dawn came down with something again and needed to take medicine.

They went out.

Asher and Adelise tried to bond more with their youngest, who was still a teen, so the trio fished together.

Asher and Adelise might be ancient and have skills in many things, but they’re both trash at fishing. None of them caught anything worth noting, but they had fun and an interesting conversation.

Dysis and Deli opted to swim. Deli was actually happy about it and sauntered around stoked: she was the beach in the sun. It was totally her thing.

Dysis wondered if she should be studying. She couldn’t stay up all night like Deli and she knew that the better her grades, the better her chances of landing a great job after graduation.

Darius missed the outing because he had scouts. His scouting meeting inspired him to try grilling again as he really needed that Outdoor Adventurer badge. When everyone returned in a few minutes, he’d be ready to surprise them with perfectly grilled fruit.

He inspected things closely, but had a feeling that something might be slightly off.

Just close the lid and back away? Last time, that hadn’t worked, but now surely …

Nope, fire! Darius ran inside while his mother and sister ran out.

After the grill was ruined, Darius attempted to put the fire out.

Dawn was annoyed as she’d seen him close the lid and run away. This was the second time this had happened. Hadn’t he learned to use the extinguisher?

Watching Darius struggle and always willing to help her twin, Dyna grabbed another fire extinguisher to assist him.

Luckily, the only thing lost was the grill.