8.28 – Understanding the criticality

Before the chapter I just wanted to thank a few extra few people who nominated me for the Libester Award! I would’ve answered all their questions, but busyness has prevented me to do so. I still really want to thank Enasni, paige795, thesimsloewelegacy, and TinyPiglet for nominating me. You guys are awesome 😀

Xavier’s POV

“I’m getting tired of you acting like a spoiled brat!” Annaliese exclaimed when I didn’t respond. A spoiled brat? Where is she getting this from? “This is bigger than you! Bigger than your…your drawings, bigger than school, bigger than all of this! You have the chance to help someone, why are you avoiding it?”

By that point, I’d already gotten to my feet more than a little insulted.

“You try having a bunch of strangers literally show up at your doorstep demanding you help them and then actually follow you to university!” I shot back. Thank god the vampire hadn’t done the same. I hadn’t seen him since then.

Annaliese grinned. “Finally, you’re listening! Will you hear me out now? You don’t have class for another hour anyway.”

“You’re planning for this explanation to take an hour?” I grumbled.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I pursed my lips, but said nothing.

“Ok, where do I start?” I rolled my eyes and went to go back to drawing when she grabbed my arm. “No, I got it! I’ll start simple enough. Do you know about white-eyes?”

“White-eyes? That big thing a while back? Yeah. I guess.” I shrugged. I was never one to pay attention to the news and such.

“Well what do you know of them?” Annaliese asked.

“They have white-eyes.” I replied.

“Yeah well…ok that’s true, but that’s…anyway. White-eyes are basically what allow supernaturals to exist and have, you know, powers. There used to only be one, but some weird thing happened and now there’s a whole bunch, but they’re all slowly dying off-”

“Is this seriously going to be a history lesson?”

“No. Be patient and stop acting like a brat.” Okay, she seriously has to stop calling me a brat. “Like I said, there are less and less white-eyes, mostly because they’re all dying of old age. In fact, starting from last week there’s only one white-eyed left alive. The whole fate of supernaturals rests on this one white-eyed, and surprisingly no one realizes this…”

“So what, he dies all supernaturals die?” I asked, unwillingly starting to get interested.

“No. Yes. I actually don’t know. But the spell I need your help with could’ve easily been done by the most amateur witch a few centuries ago. Now, we need two of the most powerful witches alive, which is you and me, to even consider doing this spell. This spell-” Now I know that that’s a lie. Me? A powerful witch? Please.

“Wait. Who’s the white-eyed?” I interrupted her. She was already heading into a subject that wasn’t quite as intriguing.

“That’s not really what I was getting to-”

“Sounds like a pretty important person, I think it’s pretty pertinent to know. Is it someone I know?”

“No, I really doubt that. It’s a vampire named Kevin. Wait no, Nevil. Arg…oh yeah Kevil! Anyway, not important it’s not like he’ll die anytime soon. He’s a vampire!” Annaliese said.

“Oh…okay then.” That was kind of disappointing. Wait, weren’t white-eyes unable to be supernaturals? Meh, I probably misunderstood.

“Where was I? I forget…” Annaliese said, frowning at the bushes behind me.

“This is really straightforward and easy to follow. Great history lesson I’ll just-” Now that the interesting part of this conversation is over…

“Stop it! I’ve told you about white-eyes…and I forget where I was going with that. Okay, I’ll just go with my story. Might be simpler. Alright so, half a year ago your father found me-”

“Don’t call him my father.” I instantly snapped.

“Why not? That’s who he is.” Annaliese said.

“How do you even know that? You can’t know for sure.” I said, irritated. Offense implied, I really would rather not even consider having a father like that.

“I can, but that’s later. So, as I was saying he found me when I was discovering my power. At the time I thought all witches could do it, but he made it quite clear to me that what I could do wasn’t normal. Healing that is.”

The shock was instant.

“You can heal?” The question had barely left my mouth that I was hoping she wouldn’t answer it.

“Yeah. Nothing big, if you have a scratch I can heal it up in no time, but broken bones? Yeah no I can’t.”

“You can heal? There really exists someone who can heal? I thought…” All I could focus on was the missed opportunity. The knowledge that Erin was right – maybe this woman could’ve healed Oliver or at least helped him.

“Yeah, common knowledge. I asked your fath- James why I was the only one to have it, but he was really vague telling me a lot of weird stuff was happening. And then he asked for- well that’s funny saying ask because technically he can’t speak. Yeah he’s mute.” Annaliese said.

“Ok.” Should I tell Erin? How mean would that be though, telling her there had been a solution after all. Apart from the flimsy failure of a potion she’d done.

“And so he asked for my help, telling me I was one of the two most powerful witches alive. He needed help to save his daughter. She’s possessed by demons basically! Oh, I guess she’s your half-sister. Ha.”

Yeah, step-sister IF that guy is my dad. Which he isn’t, I’m sure.

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“He’d found a spell, see, that could separate two minds stuck in one body, but he’s not a witch and we tried performing it with me only, but it wasn’t successful. I wasn’t strong enough. So you’re our last hope! Our two powers together should be more than enough. With you we can free the poor girl!” Annaliese passionately said.

“From demons. Because demons exist now.” I said as her tale started to sound less believable by the second.

“Well okay, not from demons. But he wasn’t very explicit on the subject. He just said some very bad person was sharing her body. I’m guessing this person wants to kill the last white-eyed or something.” Annaliese shrugged.

“And how did you come to the conclusion I’m related to these two people again? Because if I were you I wouldn’t listen to a vampire. He probably just told – okay not told but oh whatever – let you know so you could guilt trip me into helping because it’s family.” I said. Now that I think about it, him being mute kind of explains his weird behavior. Kind of.

“No, see the thing is he didn’t tell me. I used a fancy spell, I wanted to practice and I read some books and found a spell that I could actually do. I named it the ‘identification spell’. You’re supposed to be able to do really epic stuff with it, but at my level I can only see basic information. And I cast it on your father and it told me who his parents were and who his children were and you were there, and then he said we needed to go find you and I thought you two were going to have a nice reunion but it seems I was wrong.” Annaliese spilled out.

“Seems so…how accurate is this spell?” I managed to ask.

“Pretty accurate. Your dad is pretty cool, you know, once you get over the whole scary silence glare thing.” Annaliese smiled. Vampires drink blood. I think she forgot that part.

“Could you…could you check – I mean confirm who my parents are? With the spell?” I forced myself to ask. I don’t know why, but knowing I could know exactly who…it was an idea I didn’t want to let go of.

“Are you going to help us?” Annaliese asked.

“Look…I know you seem to think I’m as powerful a witch as you, but I’m really not. I’m probably the worst one out there, and I probably have the least amount of control on my powers. I don’t think you guys should even think about relyi-”

“Okay, I’ll cast the spell and I’ll let you think about things. I pretty much just dumped a whole bunch of information on you, sorry about that.” Annaliese interrupted.

Annaliese pulled out a wand and waved it the air, muttering the incantation under her breath. Seeing her perform magic, momentarily made me miss using magic myself. I haven’t used my magic for months. From before everything went downhill.

Annaliese’s eyes flashed for a few seconds.

“From what I see here your name is Xavier Whitelight, your mother is Jamie Pichette, your father is James Whitelight, and you have a half-brother and half-sister all on your father’s side: Catarina and Benjamin Whitelight.” Annaliese replied.

So that man really was my father. My dad is a vampire. And my mom…well her name is Jamie Pichette. And I have siblings.

I didn’t know what else to say.

“Okay, thanks.”

***

I woke up from a rather unsettling dream by the sound of drums. I don’t remember what it was about; I only remember a sadness weighing down on me. But, not necessarily mine if that makes sense.

I stretched, fully walking up, and I looked out the window expecting some bright sunshine.

There was sunshine, plus something else.

Eina was jumping on the trampoline outside ridiculously high. She waved enthusiastically when she saw me through the window. Then, when she jumped the next time, she motioned for me to come outside.

I’m going to need to find some blinds for my window.

I got dressed and headed out my room.

I’m the only who sleeps in around here. Everyone else always seem to be up bright and early every single day. I have no idea how they do it.

It seems Lem has finally managed to convince his band to practice at our dorm, which kind of seems like the right thing to do since there’s only one member of their band who doesn’t sleep here. I don’t know the third member personally, I think his name starts with T or something.

I managed to walk past them, but I couldn’t hear a thing the two were talking about with Samantha playing the drums.

I made my way outside only to be assaulted by Xenia.

“Whose side are you on?” She demanded to know.

“A side?”

“Teo or mine?” She asked glaring at me.

“Uh yours obviously.”

Xenia smiled. “Good choice. So how did the talk go with Erin yesterday? How’s her pregnancy going? I tried calling yesterday but she wouldn’t answer.”

“She’s doing well.” I replied. “She finally revealed the gender it’s a-”

Eina suddenly interrupted the conversation, a bit of out of breath.

“Hey Xavier! What do you think about supernaturals?” Eina asked.

“Um, I…why are you asking?” What I think about supernaturals? I’m one (something none of my roommates, apart from Teo, know). A fact Annaliese rubbed in my face yesterday. Oh geez, right, that whole thing. I hope Annaliese doesn’t expect an answer because I’m actually considering it right now.

“I was just trying to go to the principal’s office, you see, to get Lem kicked out – okay not to get Lem kicked out that would be too beautiful to be true – but there was a whole bunch of people doing a protest waving around signs and shouting about supernatural rights and stuff! They wouldn’t let me in until I answered that yeah naturals suck and supernaturals are awesome!” Eina let out in one fell swoop.

“Oh yeah, those guys.” Xenia grumbled under her breath.

“And well I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that, especially with the whole politics thing going on. Supernaturals feel insulted because they feel like we’re not even trying to fix what’s happening and we’re just letting them go ‘extinct’.” Eina said finally taking a breath.

“We’re not letting them go extinct there’s nothing we can do about it.” Xenia scoffed.

“Well yeah but they feel like we should at least be trying to see if there is something we can do and not just cheer on the news when some new witch baby turns out to be a natural.” Eina explained.

“If there is something to do it’s going to be magic related.” Xenia said.

Xenia glanced at me looking like she’d said something horrible.

“Not that I’m against supernaturals here. I’m just against the little troupe protesting around town and just bothering everyone in general.” Xenia caught herself. Which was unnecessary since I didn’t take any offense in it.

Eina nodded in agreement. “They’re going about it all the wrong way.”

“Usually when people start protesting it’s because they can’t get anyone to listen no? It’s one of those last resort things isn’t it?” I asked.

Xenia snorted.

“Oh please, they have enough people listening to them.”

“Just not the right people.” Eina chipped in.

Seeing as I was a little out of the loop, Xenia explained to me what she meant.

“All this protest originated from some forum website the Talent Troupe created. It was originally just supposed to be a place where supernaturals could vent, but it quickly evolved into something else.”

“Ah, okay thanks.” I replied.

“Ooh ooh! Guys! Let’s play soccer! Lem patched it up so we can play again! I’ll be careful this time!” Eina exclaimed.

“Oh no, I’m good. I’m going to go back inside.” I said.

“Okay.” Eina shrugged. “Bye!”

I actually kind of want to check the website out. I hadn’t realized the supernaturals were feeling insulted to the point of protesting. This ‘extinction’ thing is real. If I ever got kids, they’d probably not inherit any witch gene.

I guess I could understand their anger a bit. What makes them, them, is slowly disappearing and the naturals couldn’t care less. Hell, they’re probably happy with this development.

A world without supernaturals sounds like a world where everyone is equal. Sounds actually better. But that’s never going to happen while that white-eyed is alive.

Hmm. I don’t actually know what side I’m on.

I wonder how many people realize that the fate supernaturals currently resides on a vampire’s shoulders. That if that vampire were to die, so would supernaturals.

If there’s a group that supports supernaturals, I’m pretty sure there’s a group against it. The media sort of grazed over the idea of white-eyes, so a lot of people probably don’t know much about it.

I reached the top of the stairs, hearing Lem arguing with his bandmate.

“You were supposed to find us a singer Lem! I’m not seeing one.”

“Traz not a lot of people are all up and about-” Lem argued sounding a little desperate.

“It was a very simple task. You had two weeks.”

“There!” Lem exclaimed. “There’s your singer!”

It took me awhile to realized Lem was pointing at me.

“Me?”

Lem grabbed my arm and dragged me over.

“You can’t just pick someone off the stairs Lem.” Traz said.

“I swear this guy can sing. I hear him sing all the time in the shower.”

“What the hell Lem?” I pulled my arm away from his grip.

“Fine then.” Traz said staring right at me. I almost recoiled back, feeling like the stare he was giving me was a little too intense for a few seconds. “I’ll see for myself if he can sing. Sing us a few notes.”

Woah, what’s with his eyepatch?

“Yes great idea!” Lem exclaimed.

Lem shoved me in front of the microphone which wasn’t even turned on.

“Go on.” Lem insisted.

“Okay I don’t actually-” I tried to protest, but Lem gave me another small shove in the back.

“Come on Xav.” He said, getting that desperate tinge in his voice again.

I reluctantly sang a few quick random notes and it seems I was liked.

“See told ya.” Lem said.

“It’s definitely not bad.” Traz smirked.

“Yeah. I think we can work with this. With a little bit of practice he could be ready in time.” Traz said.

“That’s great! You’re part of the band now Xav!” Lem exclaimed. Wait, wait-

“Increasing our supernatural ratio can only be a good thing.” Traz said as a final word, nodding his head.

Oh geez, guys I’ve remembered why I changed James’ clothes so much when he was heir.

 

See? I did it again. He’s the one sim I can’t seem to settle on his clothes. Every situation seems to demand for different jacket and pants!

Oh god I miss my baby