Cindra reaches out her hand
Cindra watched as the wind set the dead autumn leaves gently spinning through the air, falling to the dank soil at her feet like off-kilter ballerinas. The leaves whispered from the trees above, clinging desperately to their branches as the breeze caressed them, enticing them to let go and join him in this final dance. They sighed gently, knowing it would not be long before they joined their kinsmen, held in the wind’s wild embrace for one brief ecstatic moment and then tossed away to be trampled into the earth. The trees creaked softly in sorrow, knowing they would soon be abandoned, stripped bare and left to their shame in the stark winter light.
She recognised the forest from her childhood, tromping on stumpy legs through the mud with Lochan, hide and seek between the boughs of the gentle oaks. It should have seemed strange to her to be there again, this forest lay many miles from Mhalwae, but it was not. She did not think it odd either that she no longer carried a weighty belly in front of her, but could move freely among the woods without hindrance.
She walked, content to breath in the fresh autumn air, the golden light peeking down at her through the canopy of leaves that tried to hide her amongst them.
When she had walked for an age she came to a clearing and there before her lay a man-made structure, a wooden canopy cruelly mocking the trees that shivered around it, the trees that had sacrificed their kinsmen to bring it into being.
It was a funeral pyre, and atop a great pile of wood and hay Cindra could make out a small figure with flaming red hair. Flowers of purple and huge thistles had grown up around the wooden stands as though the forest was trying to reclaim what was rightfully hers, the vines and leaves lovingly embracing the bodies of the slain.
Cindra crept forward and peered down upon the pale face of the girl who lay amongst the kindling. She could not have been much younger than Cindra herself, her eyes had closed to the light too soon.
Her head lay wearily against the straw beneath, her firey hair fanning out around the pallidness of her face. That face, it somehow seemed familiar to Cindra but she knew not why.
She stooped her head to pay her respects, murmuring a small prayer for the poor girl’s soul. She crossed herself carefully as she whispered amen.
As though on cue the pyre began to burn, though Cindra could not see from whence came the torch that lit it. It caught quickly and the flames began to lick hungrily at the young girl’s body, enfolding her frail form in the heat of their embrace.
Her dress began to catch, the brilliant white of the fabric blackening with the touch of burning fingers, the cobwebs of her veil curling and turning to ash with scorching caresses.
Small sparks floated up into the air, spinning wildly in the acrid smoke, whirling, dancing for one brilliant moment until they winked out and fell to the earth as tiny black coals.
Looking at the girl’s face Cindra almost thought she could see it moving, through the shimmering heat of the fire. Her face seemed to contort into a grimace of pain or pleasure, her lips opening to moan. Her body writhing in agony or bliss as the flames flowed over her.
Then she realised the awful truth, the girl was moving. She was not dead, she was alive and they were burning her! She looked around wildly for help, opening her mouth to scream but no sound would leave her constricted throat.
She tried to reach out towards the girl but the wall of flame forced her back, her eyes streaming with pain.
The girl suddenly rose, her eyes shut tightly. Cindra couldn’t understand why she was not screaming, she could see her flesh blackening as the fire began to consume her.
“Please… somebody… help”, Cindra tried to call out but it came out as a whisper.
The girl looked down sadly at her hand the fire ate away at it, watching as the fabric of her sleeve began to slowly turn to ash, the pale skin on her hands blackening and constricting.
Then she noticed Cindra and she looked at her, her dull eyes pleading and reached out her other hand, still untouched by the flames. Her fingers stretched out, searching blindly, grasping towards her.
Unthinkingly Cindra reached out her own hand towards the girl’s, ignoring the pain of the waves of heat that were radiating from the pyre and the stench of burnt flesh and hair that filled her nostrils.
Their hands almost met and then the girl gave a single cry of exquisite pain and sorrow and her fingers curled up like the legs of a dying spider, twitching slightly in its death throes.
“Wait!”, Cindra found herself crying out though she did not know why one would say this to a someone who was dying, surely death waited for no man, “Wait! Who are you?!”.
The young girl opened her mouth and croaked, “Isabelle…”, the sound almost drowned out by the crackling and hissing of the burning wood around her. Then the fire took her.
Yay! Return of the creepy! This all reminds me of an old horror novel… love it, love it! Liked the whole laying/burning effect. Fantastic.
Wow those pictures and the chapter altogether were incredible! What a scene! And so now Cindra knows the girl’s name… we didn’t get her reaction when she heard it, so I wonder whether she recognized it. And if not, what is her husband going to say when she finally mentions the name?
I suddenly feel so sorry for Isabelle… she was creepy in some of the earlier chapters, really zombie-like. But now she just seems like a girl who had the tragic destiny of dying too young. And she is very pretty.
So I think she *has* to be either someone in Garrick’s close family, like a sister, and he was somehow responsible for her death or thinks he is. Or else she was his first love and that’s why Cindra maybe doesn’t know about her. (And maybe he was responsible for her death there, too.) But I still am voting for sister.
This is such an interesting little side-mystery, but it seems to be building up to something bad. I mean, it’s not like Cindra and Garrick are just going to compare dreams one day, and he’ll explain who it was and what happened, and then they’ll both cry a little and move on. And anyway Garrick’s getting so self-destructive lately, and this is wearing Cindra out. Ooooh…
BTW I have no idea how you got some of those shots. What *is* that thing? A bed? A love bed? A cleverly-disguised something else? I have a sort of hay-pile bed that we recently saw Cian lying on, but I’m not thrilled with it because it has a giant modern pitchfork sticking out of it.
Poor Isabelle…poor Cindra…poor everyone. Great post, really moving. Lothere, I think you can get the same hay bed you were talking about without the pitchfork- I downloaded it an age ago.
Oh, something else. It seems like a bad omen that Cindra doesn’t have her baby belly, since (I think) she is still pregnant in real life. I hope the baby’s okay…
Thanks guys
First of all welcome Speystar
good to see you over here.
You’ll get Cindra’s reaction in the next post, up asap.
That thing is actually just a pile of hay I picked up somewhere along the way, then I put a whole lot of them next to each other at different angles to make a sort of pyre using boolprop snapobjectstogrid false. To be honest I have no idea where I originally got that hay, I have found it though but it is at a site I know I have never been to, here. Maybe it was included in a farm or castle or something I downloaded elsewhere. You have to register with the site to get it if you really want it but it is free. I had forgotten I had the hay bed. But I guess it wouldn’t have looked as bonfirey so this was probably better for this chapter. And actually as Speystar said, Maylin has now made a version sans pitchfork which is here.
So basically I set up the whole pyre/bonfire thing and then I made Isabelle sleep on a bed elsewhere and moved her over to the pile of stuff so she was sleeping on that instead. Sometimes they just jump back to the bed but she stayed put, I don’t have too much problem with the jumping back, usually it is only when they are getting up or something like that. Then I had trigger nightmare on using TwoJeff’s Movie Maker Effects Bonsai (apparently it has moved to More awesome than you… I also don’t remember ever going here so I assume it hasn’t always been here and I don’t seem to have a login… but it seems I can’t remember anything today so maybe it is just me), which gave me the interesting facial expressions. I can’t actually get the no zzzs thing to work with this so I make my sims constantly have nightmares (nasty eh? poor guys… kind of realistic in Mhalwae though). Either that or constantly move the bed around when I want to take a pic (run away from the evil zzzs). And then of course trusty sims effects for the fire (I know you have it Lothere but I am putting up a link in case someone else doesn’t).
And Speystar… you are right, Cindra is still pregnant in real life (as much as Mhalwae can be called real life
Okay so I just found out that Twojeff moved to Inteenimator and has actually rendered the bonsai obsolete but you can still download it here. As I said it seems to only work for the trigger nightmares… but then I haven’t patched in a while (for this reason… don’t want to break any of my hacks… there are some terrible gameplay bugs in my sims but they don’t cause me any problems for blogging and that is all I do these days so it doesn’t really bother me), so maybe if you have it won’t work at all. But anyway… give it a go if you want.
Creepy! I think it must be Garricks sister cause Cindra said she looked familiar. I hope this discovery doesn’t hurt their relationship too much, though I agree with Lothere, it’s not going to be a pretty scene.
Hi. For a moment there I thought you were going to tell us that Garrick has died or something. I’m curious as to whether Cindra will tell Garrick about this dream though I doubt it since he hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about his dreams.
As for the lack of the baby bump I don’t think it really means anything (I hope) it probably how this dreams works like the dream taking place in the woods where Cindra played as a child when she is miles away from that place.
Keep Simming!.
See ya.
Thanks for the no-pitchfork version… I knew that was going to be created sooner or later but I never check back to stuff I download in search of updates. Yay now Cian can have a bigger pile of straw to sleep on!
I never even *knew* there were special animations for nightmares. Shows how much I “play” the game these days. I should try that sometime. I am sure those could come in handy. *evil cackle*
I have the bonsai but I no longer use it since I downloaded the no ZZZs global mod by Numenor:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=227410
It took me a while to figure out the no-ZZZ’s bonsai too… my 2 problems with it were that I didn’t realize you had to leave it on the lot at all times while you want it active (I ended up hiding it under furniture), and you have to turn off ZZZs before the Sim even gets into bed.
I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, just before I found the global mod. That no ZZZs mod is one of my must-haves now… I should put a link on my site actually. That, and the showheadlines off cheat, have made taking pictures sooooo much less hassle for me. And the visible ceilings too!
Verity, you might also check out the invisible bed and bedding:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=182670
I use these sometimes for various bed-related activities. No hopping around then. There is also an invisble couch in there that I use a lot more often. I just wish I could find an invisible chair.
Thanks so much for the links Lothere. I am off to check them out. The no zzzs mod sounds like the best thing ever. I hate those zzzs. SO MUCH!