#helen jumpscare!! remember her?

[ghostie-gengar]

N childhood memory thing!! i'm back on my "N has a secret mom" crap (1200 ish words)

N hurried through the halls of the castle, stumbling to put on his shoes on the way. Since he was about to have an audience with his father, he figured he’d better at least put on a pair of shoes. Admittedly, he hated wearing shoes, but it was better than adding to the numerous screaming arguments that would spark if he didn’t

He turned a few corners, smiled and waved when the occasional maid bowed for him- he was a prince, after all- and found the entrance to his father’s office.

However, when he smoothed down his shirt and got ready to knock on the door, he saw it was slightly ajar.

N nervously shifted, then knocked three times. After a few moments with no reply, he called out, “Father? Are you there?”

No reply.

Brimming with curiosity, he peeked through the crack, squinting through at the warmly lit office. He began to pry the door open further, but stopped himself.

It had been expressly and repeatedly stated that N wasn’t allowed in there. And N wasn’t really in the mood to get hit or yelled at or grounded.

He stepped back and mulled over it for a few minutes, then decided. He opened the door with a creak, then slipped in.

He was at the age where he wasn’t one to follow rules, after all.

N had been in the office a couple of times, mainly for the odd brief discussion with his father. The floor was covered in an intricately embroidered carpet N would have loved to feel on his bare feet, and the walls were lined with bookshelves holding books on subjects from philosophy to art. N itched to flip through them, excited by the prospect of a whole room of books he hadn’t read yet, but figured he’d better not mess with anything. (At this point, he was risking having to wash the floors, too.)

“Father?” he called again, just so he could pretend he was still looking for him.

There was a large painting hanging above the desk. It depicted a cloudy, misty evening, where a Hydreigon clawed and tore away at a flower- a gladiolus, if N remembered correctly. What’s more, based on the tiny doodles he’d seen on the corners of his father’s notes, he could safely assume his father had painted it himself.

N stepped closer just to marvel at it. His father had never shown him his art, or anything personal, really. Maybe that’s why the concept of wandering into his forbidden office was so alluring.

He carefully turned around, ready to leave before he could get caught, but saw something very interesting on the desk.

There was a notebook (N didn’t even want to look at it, for he knew his father would likely kill him), as well as a few open books. One of the books was a sketchbook, where the open page depicted a near identical drawing of the vase of flowers nearby.

But most strikingly, was a small picture, in sunbleached colour, of two people.

One of them was his father. He looked younger and quite dapper in a dress shirt and slacks. His eyes were turned up in a smile, including the right eye N had never seen. 

N picked up the frame to get a closer look.

The other person was a woman around his father’s age, clinging to his arm and beaming with all the light in the world. Her hair was a light pink and tied up in a bun, and she wore a pretty yellow dress.

She kind of looked like N’s older sister. Her eyes were more like his other sister, though.

And of course, as he stared down at the window into his father’s past, that was the moment when the door creaked open, with his father on the other side.

“N? What are you doing in my office?” the man said with a frown.

N’s heart hammered against his chest, and his head began to feel fuzzy. “I’m sorry!” he quickly sputtered out. “I know I’m not allowed in here, but I was looking for you, but you weren’t here, and-” He bit his tongue. Excuses would only make things worse!

His father’s eyes fell to the frame in his hands. “What do you have there?” 

“I shouldn’t have looked,” N said, wincing as his father drew nearer, “but I was curious.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but his father didn’t strike him, or yell. Just placed a hand on his back and peered over at the picture.

“That’s an old photograph,” he simply said.

N went still, mustering the courage to even speak. “Who is she?”

He didn’t think his father would reply. Surprisingly, he was wrong.

“My wife. Your mother.”

Mother?

Of course, since he was fourteen, N’s first thought was, My dad gets girls??

He couldn’t say that, obviously, so he looked closer at the picture. Sure enough, he could see little traces of himself in her brown eyes, and her freckles, and her smile full of crooked teeth.

“She’s pretty,” N said, at a loss for anything else to say.

“She was very beautiful,” His father gently took the frame from N’s hands. “and very kind.” He set the picture back down on the desk.

Was.

Ah. 

N knew better than to inquire further, and his father knew better than to let him.

“Now, what did you need me for?” his father asked, voice edging on annoyance.

N’s mind went blank. In all his excitement and discovery…he totally forgot why he’d wanted to visit in the first place.

He bowed his head. “It slipped my mind. I’m sorry.”

His father rolled his good eye. The one that wasn’t concealed by an eyepatch. “Alright, then.” He patted N’s back. “Get out of my office.”

“Yes, sir!” N hurriedly shuffled out of the room, but paused at the doorway. “I like your art.”

“Out of my office.”

“Could I read your books sometime?”

“Out.”

N ran off, for he knew when his father was reaching the end of his short fuse. Still, it was a miracle he wasn’t in more trouble, but maybe his father was busy thinking up a punishment.

He kicked off his shoes and scooped them up as he ran.

He always imagined his father was hiding wicked, magical secrets behind the door to his office, like a Griseous Orb or maybe a Time Gear! (If confused about the latter, please consult N’s favourite book, Explorers of Sky)

But, everything in that office was so…normal. Why would his father feel the need to hide something so ordinary, like art or books or a picture of his wife?

Wife. N still couldn’t believe a lady would like his father.

He closed himself into his room and flopped over onto his bed, then thought about the woman’s smiling face.

He had a lot of questions, and he doubted they’d be answered.

“She was very beautiful, and very kind.”

…That’s what his father had said. He’d sounded uncharacteristically tender and forlorn, as well. He must have really loved her. It seemed hard to imagine, since he was always yelling and mad about something.

“She was very beautiful, and very kind.”

N wondered if she would have said the same thing about his father.

[chempack]

ok actually i finished playing a while ago but just remembered i said i’d post abt my steel city settlers so. not all of them but the ones most interesting to me

- the first settler to arrive is a woman i named mads, she’s always been a guard (and until recently the only one). she has the special bedroom in the projector screen (she never leaves her post to use it)

- the second is a farmer i named david. he’s got the wasteland wanderer outfit from fo3/nv (mod) and the ushanka hat so he’s very distinctive. he did have a house for a while but i tore it down and i don’t think he has an official bed now LMAO

- i have three farmers, gary is another, he’s the most recent addition to the Farming Crew. his husband paul recently became the towns first trader (i built them a cool shack area). i was actually originally going to make paul’s partner a different woman named hana but then decided to make him gay, except i forgot i did that, so i saw hana hanging out at the shop and went “awww! the couple is hanging out <3” and then went to sleep in their bed and got jumpscared by gary being there in the morning. i have a mod that adds animation replacers for scavenger stations; hana is now a scavenger that sits in front of paul’s shop (saucy…)

- i married them by assigning them to the two mattresses i put together

- paul is named after jesus from the walking dead telltale game because they have the same voice actor :)

- the last farmer is a ghoul woman named betty. she wears farmhand clothes. she shares a shack (but not a bed) with another scavenger named red, except one time i found betty sleeping outside on a random bed and PAUL was sleeping in her and red’s house…

- i plan on making at least one more shop because there’s a woman i named helen who spawned in bald wearing a hat and suit. and she’s just too swaggy to NOT get a cool role in the town.

i think that’s all the interesting ones :)