Chapter four of the matriarchal Legasea.

2. Welcome back to a long-overdue update to the Matriarchal Legasea, the fishy legacy full of independent women. The Legasea is written in turns by myself (Taube) and thinmintsim. The story will be told by the heiress (Thalassa, above), so if I have anything to add I’ll insert an author’s note at the bottom.

3. “ Auntie Thalassa!” “ Hi there, Jalpari. Are you enjoying the family barbeque?” “ No, I’m bored, Auntie. Will you tell me a story?” “ Sure. What story would you like to hear?” “ Tell me your story again!” “ Okay, here goes . . .”

4. “ When I found out that I was chosen by a group of Mom’s friends to be heiress, I was really excited. I felt confident that I would be an excellent heiress. Throughout my teenage years, I’d always been focused on my family, and I thought that I would be a natural at leading it.”

5. “ In the days following the announcement, I started to get second thoughts. My interest in family had lead me to dream about having a family of my own – a husband and little kids running around. If I lead the family the way that my foremothers had, there would be no marriage for me. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but I felt that now that I was the heiress, there was nothing I could do about it.”

6. “ Since they were now free to live life without the constraints of our family traditions, Tethys and Poseidon decided it was time to move out and move on. They both entered an accelerated college program for young, bright students. Because Tethys and I were twins and had always been close, it was the first time we would be apart. Our family was already moving in different directions.”

7. “ Poseidon and Tethys did excellently in their college program. They graduated with honors and moved on to get jobs and start their lives, despite being so young. Tethys and I were the same age, of course, so it was a little weird to see her getting a start on her adult life while I was still firmly in my teen years. Poseidon got a job as a space pirate, just like he had wanted since he was a little boy. Tethys became a pop icon, a job that suited her beauty and personality.”

8. “ My melancholy over all these changes only got worse when our first cat, Nessie, died. She was a very old cat, but it still hit me hard.”

9. “ A lot of the time, I felt like Nessie was still around. I took comfort in our other cat, Skylla, who had recently had kittens. The kittens brought me a lot of joy and seeing their cute little faces made me feel better about everything. Skylla was always Mom’s favorite so she paid her a lot of attention. She said that Skylla made faces at people, if you can believe that, Jalpari.”

10. “ I loved the kittens so much that I decided it would be wonderful to have more of them. I did some research on breeding cats, and decided I wanted to try breeding 20 cats and see how much variety I could get. I didn’t want to add to the burden of shelters, so I made sure I had homes for the kittens before they were even born. I would keep a few, of course. Tethys had agreed to take several of them, and Poseidon turned out to be a big help. His space piracy program had been looking for pets to keep the space pirates company, so he worked to get my kittens admitted to be the first feline space pirates! It felt good to know they would have a home where they could be useful and be loved by many people.” Author’s Note: Thalassa’s LTW was to raise 20 pets. Terrible.

11. “ My mom, Orca, and I now had a lot of time to spend together. She wanted me to learn a lot of different skills, but somehow the ones she taught me were always the fun ones or ones that could be made into a game. That was just Mom though – she’d always been on the playful side. On my own, I worked on skills that I thought would help me be a good mother someday. I had to work really hard on becoming a good cook because . . .”

12. “ . . . I was not a natural at it. I burned a lot of food and even set fire to the kitchen once, on accident of course. That was terrifying. Even Mom was reduced to yelling incoherently while I tried to put out the fire with the fireman who came out to help.”

13. “ While all of this was going on, I was continuing to get good grades at the private high school I attended. It was very weird to go to school without my twin and big brother there, but I tried to just focus on my studies. When I was home, I also spent a lot of time with the cats. Even though we had so many cats passing through the house, I wanted them all to feel loved. I trained them and played with them. I did favor Skylla a little bit, though.”

14. “ I also met a really nice guy named Wyatt. We met at school and started spending time together. Before long, our relationship turned into a romantic one. He was my first kiss! I didn’t have a lot of time for social stuff with everything that was going on in my life, but being with Wyatt made me happy, so I made time for him.”

15. “ My kitten breeding project was going smoothly. The first kitten born to Skylla was a little white one that I named Siren. I know that’s not very original, considering we live on Sirenum Scopuli, but it was all I could think of at the time. More cats followed Siren, each its own rainbow of fur.”

16. “ I think Mom took kind of an unnatural interest in the actual mechanics of cat breeding. I caught her out by the cat house more than a few times when Skylla was meeting a mate. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t bring it up, but it was pretty weird.”

17. “ And that’s pretty much how my life was during that time. Cats and training to be a good heiress. It kept me busy for sure.”

18. “ Ultimately, Skylla had nine kittens of all different colors. I named them after water monsters. We had Leviathan, Kelpie, Siren, Makara, Ghasha, Glashtyn, Selkie, Naga, and of course Lenapizka. Lena was the only one we kept. The rest went either to Tethys or to Poseidon’s space pirate program.” Author’s Note: Lena is the purple cat in the middle right picture.

19. “ We were sure surrounded by cats during that time. Mom helped out a lot because we realized that I had bitten off a bit more than I could chew, at least by myself. Even with her help, raising 20 kittens was turning out to be quite difficult.”

20. “ One day while we were making the rounds, cleaning litter boxes and filling food bowls, she asked me to stop and talk with her for a moment. I picked Skylla up and walked over. Mom said that she could already tell I would be a great heiress, even though I wasn’t grown yet. ‘You’re still a kid, and yet you’re more responsible than I ever was,’ she said. She sounded like she was joking, as usual, but there were tears in her eyes. She handed me her necklace, the one passed down from my great-grandmother Oceania, the founder of our legacy, and helped me fasten it around my neck. I was so touched.”

21. “ Shortly after, I decided to take a break from cat breeding and finally go to college. Mom was sad to see me go – I don’t think she relished the idea of being in the house all alone. I told her at least she would have more time for her games now, but she just sat silently as I packed to leave.”

22. “ Once I arrived and got situated, I realized that college was a blast! I was really excited to finally join the adult world – or at least, the young adult world. I made a lot of friends really quickly and got pledged to the same sorority that my mother had lived in! College was going to be a great time; I just knew it.”

23. “ Around this time I also met a handsome merman named Roger Phin. Wyatt and I had gone to different colleges and agreed to break up amiably, so I was free to date again. Roger and I quickly fell in love.”

24. “ Roger was really interested in family, just like me. We loved just spending time together, quietly and free from the busy world. It was the perfect relationship for me and I allowed myself to dive in with all my heart.”

25. “ While Roger and I spent a lot of time together, I also had lots of other things on my plate. My social life was really taking off. I joined a secret society on campus and pledged more people to my sorority. We had fun parties and all-night gaming marathons. Thanks to my mom’s influence on me, I won pretty often.”

26. “ It wasn’t all play time, though. I was determined to get really good grades and that meant studying and working hard on my schoolwork. There were more than a few raucous parties that I had to leave early. It made me sad at the time, but I’m glad that I did work so hard. It’s really paid off for me in life.”

27. “ Besides working on my schoolwork, I also started a garden at the sorority house. It was a lot of work on top of everything else that I was doing, but I found it really rewarding. I think my sisters really appreciated all the fresh produce we had, too!”

28. “ So that was my college life – a lot of studying, but also a lot of socializing. I continued to see Roger, too. He was so sweet. I remember coming out of the house the next day after a particularly brutal final and finding that he had left me roses on the porch with a charming note.”

29. “ With such a busy life, four years seemed to go by incredibly fast. When it was time to graduate, Urele Hoh threw the biggest grad party on campus. All kinds of students and people from the larger community came. It was a blast!”

30. “ Poseidon was in space at the time, but both my mom and my sister came. Tethys was so proud of me. She told me she knew that I would be successful and she thought I was the right choice for heiress. Mom merely told me that this was the beginning of a new life for me. I was so glad that both of them could attend my graduation.”

31. “ In the middle of the pool party (after I had gotten a terrible sunburn!) I went inside to prepare some dinner for the guests. As I went inside, I smelled smoke and a familiar feeling of dread rose in me. Someone else had left food in the oven and it had caught on fire! I put it out but I was left wondering why I was plagued by fire, even when I wasn’t the one cooking.”

32. “ After graduation, I made some time to visit my brother and sister and see how they were doing. Poseidon was seeing a nice newscaster named Lauren, and was a very successful space pirate. Tethys had recently moved in with a police officer named Justus. Both of my siblings seemed very happy in their lives, and I was happy for them.”

33. “ I got to check up on some of the cats that Tethys had taken. She had taken great care of them, just like I knew she would. I even got to moonlight as a space pirate and go up to the space pirate station with Poseidon. The cats there looked like they were having a lot of fun, and it was pretty funny to see cats swimming through the air in zero gravity.”

34. “ While I was away at college, Mom had moved to a new house on the beach. It was a beautiful house with a large greenhouse, a small pond, and a beautiful stretch of white, sandy beach.”

35. “ After my visits to Tethys and Poseidon, I was prepared, and even a little excited, to come home, now as an adult, and the heiress to the Legasea name.”

36. “ Of course, my welcome home was not how I had imagined it. We had a sudden rainstorm and one of the trees was struck by lightening and caught on fire! Fire! It seemed to follow me wherever I went. You must always be careful around fire, Jalpari.”

37. “ While I had been away at college, Mom had been home with only Skylla and Lena to keep her company. Skylla had always been her favorite, though, and now that Skylla was an elder, too, they spent even more time together.”

38. “ I worked on getting portraits painted. Now that I was ready to assume the heiress title, I wanted my portrait up on the wall, too. I also painted one of Lena to hang alongside Nessie and Skylla’s portraits.”

39. “ While I was trying to finish my life goal, I also had to work, of course. At first I worked as a journalist with my sister-in-law Lauren, but I later got a job in the athletic career. After some hard work, I was soon a Hall of Famer. Before I could start a family, though, I wanted to finish my goal of raising 20 cats. Now that Skylla was an elder, it was time for Lena to have kittens of her own.”

40. “ Lena had eleven kittens overall. We kept one female named Nucklavee who looked a lot like Lena, but the rest went to Tethys or the space piracy program. Lenapizka’s other kittens were named Scolopendra, Aspidoceleon, Magyr, Naiad, Nahuelito, Cthulu, Ketos, Cethegrande, Lusca, and Piast. In those days, it seemed like our house was constantly overrun by a changing cast of cats.”

41. “ All of this was pretty exhausting to Mom and I. When we weren’t taking care of cats, we tried to take good care of ourselves. When the breeding project was finally completed, I felt elated. I had set a very difficult goal for myself, but I had overcome it, and brought a lot of joy into the world as a result. Now that I had succeeded, I was ready to start a family, hopefully with Roger.”

42. “ Roger and I were still seeing each other, and we had become very close over the years. I wondered if my great-grandmother Oceania would be happy to see a merperson contribute to the legacy once again. I couldn’t help a nagging feeling I had that living a life without marriage, without close companionship, was not a life I would choose for myself.”

43. “ Roger and I decided to go on vacation together. We chose a lovely little resort in the Far East in a town called Takemizu. I hoped that spending a lot of one-on-one time with Roger during the vacation would help satisfy the longing I felt to marry him. Hopefully, I told myself, I will get over this and live the matriarchal lifestyle without reservations.”

44. “ Roger and I had a lot of fun on our trip. We sampled local cuisine, took advantage of the spa at the resort, and just spent a lot of time together, doing the things we liked to do. It was a wonderful trip.”

45. “ However, the more time I spent with Roger, the more I wanted to live a normal life, to marry him and settle down together. I couldn’t though – I had been chosen as the heiress, and I had already made my promises to my mother to continue the lifestyle that she herself had lived. When she sacrificed to raise us in this way, how could I refuse to follow? I was torn, and I quickly became miserable despite all the splendor around me. I found a wishing well and wished with all my might that somehow I could find a way to be happy, to reconcile my competing wants to follow the Legasea ways and to marry Roger. There was no answer from the well.”

46. “ Desperate, I sought out a local wise man that I had heard about. While Roger fished, well out of earshot, I spilled out my heart, all my joy in my relationship with Roger, and all my sorrow that I couldn’t live the way I wanted. I told him about my family wanting to live life without marrying, but how all I wanted was to be married.”

47. “ To my surprise, instead of offering some kind words of wisdom, he chastised me. ‘No one can make the choice but you,’ he said. ‘You have to decide what it is that you truly want most. We can’t always have everything we want in life, and when we have to make the hard decisions, we must decide based on our values and our own wisdom.’”

48. “ After that we talked for a long time, and it eventually had gotten dark. Roger was being very patient waiting for me, but I wasn’t done yet. I heeded the wise man’s words, but no solution was coming to me. Then he said he wanted to tell me a story about a woman who had to make the same decisions. To my surprise, he told me the story of Oceania, my own great-grandmother, and why she had escaped a suitor chosen for her in order to live the matriarchal lifestyle, free from confinement. Did he know who I was? He wouldn’t say why he chose that story, only that I should think carefully about it.”

49. “ I spent a long time that night thinking about what the wise man had said. Finally, I decided that the most important thing to me was the legacy I’d been born into. Three amazingly strong women had lived this way before me and I had been chosen to continue to walk their path. I felt a sense of peace as I thought these things. This was my destiny – I couldn’t escape it. And, for the first time, I didn’t want to.”

50. “ One more hurdle stood before me. I’d have to tell Roger my decision and let him make up his own mind. He had talked about marriage before, so I knew it was something he wanted, too. I steeled myself for the conversation. If marriage was more important to him, I would have to accept his choice, too. He listened quietly and then asked for some time to think. He went off on a long walk into the darkness and I went back into the resort.”

51. “ Later that evening I heard him calling my name from outside. I went out to the porch and there he was. He got down on his knees and yelled, ‘I love you – that’s all there is!’ He looked at me and then said more quietly, ‘I love you, Thalassa. If this is what you need to be happy, I will go along with it.’ I rushed to hug him as he stood up. It looked like things were going to work out after all. My life wouldn’t be the way I had dreamed of, but I still had the strength and goals of my family and the love of a wonderful merman.”

52. “ The rest of our trip was a dream. Freed from my worries, I was able to fully enjoy our time. I found working in the zen garden to be so relaxing, and I even met a ninja who taught me the secret of ninja teleportation!”

53. “ Now that I wasn’t fretting, I was free to enjoy the things I love to do most. For me, that includes talking to Tethys on the phone and telling dirty jokes – not that you’re old enough to hear any of my good ones, Jalpari.”

54. “ Roger and I did as many activities as we could fit in. We also spent plenty of quality time together. We knew now that our life would be different once we got back, so we relished this time together, just the two of us. Little did I know I would be bringing something home besides souvenirs.”

55. “ With a light heart I said goodbye to Takemizu. I had come here to escape my worries, but when I faced them instead, I overcame them. Now I finally felt excited to face the adventure that being the heiress of a matriarchy would be.”

56. “ Mom welcomed me home with open arms. I told her about my conversation with the wise man and what I had decided. She put her hands on my shoulders and said, ‘I had no idea you were struggling so much with your family-oriented desires. But I’m glad you’ve chosen to continue our way. You’ve already made me so proud.’”

57. “ I also introduced Mom to Roger. They seemed to get on pretty well. Later, when Roger was out of earshot, Mom whispered to me, ‘That is one hot piece of tail! Nice job!’ ‘ Mom!’ I complained, but I couldn’t help laughing, too. I was relieved that she approved of my choice, no matter what her reasons were.”

58. “ Not long after I came back from vacation, Skylla passed away. In her final moments she was comforted by her grandkitten, Nucklavee. We buried her out back next to her mother, Nessie.”

59. “ I was also feeling really sick all the time. I wondered if I had gotten food poisoning or picked up some foreign bug while on vacation.”

60. “ I soon realized the truth, though. I was pregnant! Roger and I were going to have a baby – the first baby of my part of the legacy. I was excited to have a little nooboo of my own and proud that I had stuck to my convictions.”

61. “ Mom was so proud, too. She was constantly asking me if I wanted a drink, if I should sit down for a while, if I needed anything. The one thing I needed was reassurance, which I did get from her. Raising a kid by myself was daunting, and I couldn’t help but think again about marriage. Mom was understanding and listened to me when I was upset, but there wasn’t much she could say. She had always been a free spirit, so raising the children in a matriarchy didn’t affect her the way it did me.”

62. “ Roger was actually even more help in that regard. He sent me little love notes and things like that throughout my pregnancy. He reassured me that even though we wouldn’t live the traditional life, he would be there for me and my children in what ways he could. He was so understanding about why I felt I had to live this way.”

63. “ On my due date I had several visitors. Roger was there, of course, and Tethys and our sister-in-law Lauren came too. It was good to have a few other girls there, especially since they had already had children. And it was nice to have Roger nearby as well.”

64. “ Luckily things happened right on schedule and when I went into labor, I was surrounded by people that loved me and cared for my welfare. It was no easy thing giving birth, especially because . . .”

65. “ . . . it turned out that I had twins! I was so glad that Roger was there to meet our two new daughters. I named the redhead Merrow and the blonde Lorelei.”

66. “ Mom was a big help with the babies, but I think that secretly, she enjoyed the company of the cats even more. She spent as much time as she could with Lenapizka and Nucklavee, which was good since I had no time for the cats with two new babies to care for. Mom’s attention was divided, but mine was laser-focused.”

67. “ Having my daughters brought out the strongest maternal feelings in me, and I just wanted to spend all day cuddling, holding, and tickling them. It was just about all I wanted. It wasn’t always easy though. Regardless of my motherly instincts, I still had to deal with some pretty gross stuff. Babies are darling, Jalpari, but they can sure do some nasty things.”

68. “ The babies weren’t the only ones occasionally throwing up, though. Roger had been over to visit and play with the twins several times since they had been born, and this time I had the experience to recognize morning sickness when it came on. My girls were still babies and I was already pregnant again!”

69. “ Luckily, while my belly was growing, the twins were also growing. It was soon time for their first birthday and we had a fun little party with close friends and family to celebrate. I couldn’t believe the girls would soon be toddlers!”

70. “ At the birthday party, after Lorelei and Merrow had been put to bed, I entertained the group with a retelling of Oceania’s story. Ever since my encounter with the wise man, I had been really into telling stories. I’m glad that you enjoy my stories, too.”

71. “ Merrow and Lorelei grew into such beautiful little girls. Their personalities really started to come out, too. Merrow was such a friendly little thing, while Lorelei was more quiet but also very playful. Merrow had been born with a problem with her eyes, and now that she was a toddler we had her fitted with special lenses to help correct the problem.” Author’s Note: Merrow’s personality is 5/10/7/3/6. Lorelei’s is 5/4/4/10/6. Merrow’s eye color, inherited from Orca, got deleted in a CC purge so she has the neutral eyes for the skintone. I have her wearing contacts so she doesn’t look weird.

72. “ It was a lot of work raising twin toddlers while pregnant, made harder by my lack of a spouse. Somehow, Mom and I managed. I’m very proud of myself that I did stay true to my convictions, even though it made things more difficult.”

73. “ Still, there were a lot of times that I had doubts. Was I doing the right thing with my life? Was I really happy like this?”

74. “ When I looked at my girls, though, all my worries went away. They were so beautiful and perfect, so amazing. I reassured myself with the thought that someday, when they were older, they would understand the significance of our legacy and appreciate the amazing thing they had been born into.”

75. “ When I went into labor again, Mom was the only one around. She helped me deliver successfully. Amazingly, against the odds, I had another set of twins! This time there was a boy and a girl with the same coloring. I named the boy Abtu and the girl Anet. They both had their father’s eyes.”

76. “ I was in heaven again with two new little babies in the house. I never could have imagined how fiercely I would love my four children. Of all my family-related desires, the ones that had to do with my kids made me happiest.”

77. “ Of course, my older twins were getting so big and getting into all kinds of trouble. I was definitely kept busy in those days, and I was so wrapped up in caring for my four babies that I didn’t even remember to be sad that their father didn’t live with us.”

78. “ Merrow and Lorelei were learning so much and getting so big. I knew that soon they would outgrow this darling stage and become children, so I took a lot of pictures of them during this time.”

79. “ Just like I had thought, in the blink of an eye they were children – or at least it seemed that way. Both of them grew up so beautiful. They did well in school when they started. Merrow made friends the quickest, but Lorelei was the hardest to drag off the playground. I was so proud of my girls.”

80. “ I spent more time in those days painting. I redid my heiress portrait to better reflect my style, now that I was a bit older and more experienced. I also painted a portrait of Nucklavee, as she would someday be the next mother in our little pet legacy.”

81. “ Before long, Anet and Abtu had grown into toddlers, crawling around and getting into things. To my delight, Abtu grew his tail, just like his father and several of the women in the family before me. Since my siblings and I didn’t have tails, it was a nice surprise to see it in the family once again. It made it harder for Abtu to learn to walk, but he was so cute with his little scales. Overall, Abtu had a very even personality and was pretty calm. Anet, on the other hand, was extremely active – all over the place – and had a bit of a mean streak at times.” Author’s Note: Anet’s personality is 5/4/9/6/1. Abtu’s is 5/4/4/6/6.

82. “ Now that all my babies had grown up, there was a lot of work to be done for their education and teaching them to be good, kind, helpful little kids. They all learned very quickly and took to lessons naturally, so they were a pleasure to teach. Merrow and Lorelei brought home one A+ after another from school.”

83. “ My youngest pair of twins were growing so quickly. I made sure to also take lots of pictures of them so I would remember this stage when they were grown.”

84. “ Birthdays came and went and both Abtu and Anet grew into wonderful and beautiful children. They both took after their father a good deal, especially with his eyes and hair color. Abtu continued to be a very even-tempered little merboy who played by himself a lot. Now that Anet was older, her meanness wasn’t as evident and she actually made a lot of friends.”

85. “ My older girls were enjoying their childhood. When they had free time, Lorelei preferred to be down on the beach, building sand castles. She built more sandcastles on that beach than I would have thought possible. Merrow also seemed to be obsessed, but for her it was with the piano. She played so much that she seemed to maximize her creativity all by herself! The girls also spent time with their father whenever he visited.”

86. “ Roger tried to divide his time evenly but I could tell he was especially interested in Abtu. He took plenty of time to teach him the ways of being a merman. I think this relationship really helped Abtu so he didn’t feel like the odd one out. Being encouraged by his father gave him a lot of confidence and they were the best of friends.”

87. “ All of my children were growing quickly. They spent a lot of time playing but I wanted them to focus more on their education as they got older. It couldn’t be all toys, sandcastles, and pianos all the time.”

88. “ I had the headmaster of a local private school over for dinner and he was quite impressed with the family and with the kids’ grades. He accepted my four children into his school right away.”

89. “ My children were growing so fast and succeeding in life, which made me very proud. Both Abtu and Lorelei seemed to keep to themselves for the most part, while Anet and Merrow were more social.”

90. “ In fact, Merrow was more than social – she was some kind of friend-making superhero. She was on great terms with all of her siblings, but especially with Abtu. She also seemed to bring other kids home from school to play all the time. Thanks to her, it seemed like we always had a few extra kids running around.”

91. “ Since Anet had shown the potential for some meanness as a toddler, I was a little worried that she might be a troublemaker as she grew up. To my surprise, I never saw any of that mean streak ever again! She was friendly with her siblings, shared well, and never started arguments. She also made friends with a lot of the kids that Merrow was already friends with. For someone with the capacity to be mean, she was almost bizarrely nice!”

92. “ Since Abtu kept to himself a lot, the girls spent a lot of time together, especially down on the beach. Merrow was always the ringleader, but they had a lot of fun together.”

93. “ In fact we all spent quite a bit of time on the sand or in the water. I guess coming from a line of merpeople meant it was just in our blood. We had some amazing family days out on the beach and we have a few really great family portraits from those times. All of my kids were so photogenic!”

94. “ Mom tried not to play favorites but she especially enjoyed time with the girls. She loved telling them stories about her mother, Atlantica, and her grandmother, Oceania. She wanted to encourage them and remind them of what an amazing thing they were part of. Since I had made my peace with this lifestyle, I only stood by and smiled.”

95. “ Soon an important birthday arrived for Lorelei and Merrow. My oldest twins would soon be teenagers! I wondered what paths they would follow in life, and what they would grow up to be. I couldn’t believe they were already getting so old.”

96. “ Lorelei and Merrow continued to be absolutely stunning. In the days after their birthday, they both shared with me their dreams. Merrow took after me in caring a lot about family. I guess it wasn’t just the red hair that I had passed down to her! Lorelei, on the other hand, told me she wanted to focus on knowledge and learning, and that she had a particular interest in architecture and the properties of sand.” Author’s Note: Merrow’s aspiration is family and Lorelei’s is knowledge.

97. “ Merrow continued to bring new friends home all the time as a teenager. It seemed like that girl never once got off the bus alone – she was always followed by some classmate. When she could be distracted from her sandcastle-building, Lorelei tried to socialize too but didn’t have as much success as her twin.”

98. “ Mom had been spending more time alone recently, relaxing and thinking, seemingly. I wasn’t sure what was going on with her. It wasn’t like her to be so pensive.”

99. “ Mom invited Tethys and Poseidon over and we spent a long afternoon and evening talking about everything we had done and seen. We talked about the cats of course, but also our jobs and the people who had joined our lives – Lauren, Justus, and Roger. We reminisced and laughed all evening. It was a wonderful time for all of us to catch up. Mom seemed so fascinated by everything that was going on in our lives, and in remembering what had already happened. It was strange – again, it was unlike Mom to suddenly be so interested in the past.”

100. “ I soon realized what was going on when Mom passed away just a few days later. It was so strange to suddenly be in the house without her. I had taken for granted how much I depended on her and how much her fun presence had lightened my life. I missed her terribly.”

101. “ Orca Legasea, my mother and your grandmother, Jalpari, was an amazing woman. Although she was someone who lived firmly in the lighter side of life, that was one of her strengths. She sought the pleasurable things in life and found them, and was still a great mother to three children who loved her very much.”

102. “ Now that Mom had passed on, I realized that I was the head of the family. It was a sobering thought. Having kids had made me more responsible, but nothing prepared me for the feeling of being the one now guiding our legacy. Someday soon one of my children would be the heiress or heir, and I would be ushering them into adulthood just like my mother had done for me.”

103. “ While all of these changes were going on for me, my brother and sister had also been living full lives. Poseidon and Lauren, your parents, had a beautiful wedding for which Tethys and I were bridesmaids. All three of our families are close and always have been.”

104. “ Poseidon and Lauren had three children – that’s you, Jalpari, and your brothers Aphros and Bythos. You were all such adorable children, and it was surprising to see Orca’s golden fishy skin turn up again in Bythos.”

105. “ Tethys also got married, though much later in life. She and Justus had already been raising one daughter for some time when they decided to tie the knot. By that time my daughters were old enough to be bridesmaids and I was the maid of honor. It was strange seeing Tethys still looking so young, but that’s a consequence of the different lives we’ve led.”

106. “ Tethys’ older daughter was Azure, who is the same age as my older twins. Your little cousin Remora came after the wedding, about nine months after the honeymoon, in fact.”

107. “ Meanwhile, back at our house, Anet and Abtu were growing up quickly. They were both doing very well in private school and Anet had made a lot of friends. Abtu was more like Lorelei in that he mostly liked to keep to himself. It seemed like one day they were little, horsing around by the stairs . . .”

108. “ . . . and the next day they were teenagers, with all new interests and goals and a fierce desire to gossip. Anet and Abtu had always spent time together but as teens they became especially close. Abtu became very interested in gaming and goofing off – he reminded me so much of Mom. Anet, on the other hand, suddenly developed a strong interest in dating. They were both a handful.” Author’s Note: Abtu rolled pleasure and Anet rolled romance.

109. “ Of course, the kids weren’t the only ones aging. I found myself becoming an elder as my hair turned silky white and my knees became creaky. I don’t think I’ve changed too much – except for the hair I still look a lot like my former self. I’ve learned and grown a lot in my life and I like to think that’s reflected in my appearance.”

110. “ I couldn’t help wondering sometimes if Mom was proud of the way I was carrying on her legacy. She and the strong women that came before her had been my template for life, and despite misgivings at the start, I had followed the template faithfully.”

111. “ And that’s the story of my life. I have a beautiful house, a great job, and of course an absolutely wonderful family of four bright, beautiful teens. My life didn’t turn out the way I had dreamed of as a teenager, but it has turned out perfectly nonetheless.”

112. “ The end.” “ Great story, sis!” “ Yeah, thanks for telling it, Auntie. I love your stories!” “ Tell us the one about Oceania again, Mom.” “ Okay, well, Oceania was a young mermaid in the mer kingdom below the waves . . .”

113. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story and pictures. Following are the pictures and details for the four teens to give you a better idea of their personalities before you vote in the heir poll at SiMania.

114. Merrow Legasea, “The School Bus Pied Piper” Family 5/10/7/3/6 Merrow is the only redhead of this generation but she has missing eye genetics and wears contacts.

115. Lorelei Legasea “Voted Most Likely to Build Sandcastles” Knowledge 5/4/4/10/6 Lorelei is the only child with Thalassa’s very pretty eyes.

116. Abtu Legasea “Hottest Fish in the School” Pleasure 5/4/4/6/6 Abtu is the only merperson. As he is a boy, if he were heir he would have to get alien impregnated.

117. Anet Legasea “The Anomalously Nice Mean Sim” Romance 5/4/9/6/1 Anet has pointy ears. She is also the only one whose aspiration we don’t already have.

118. And that’s it for the Legasea. Please visit SiMania and vote in the heir poll! Thanks for reading!