Apocalypse of Ice Chapter 11.2

Previously on An Apocalypse of Ice: 

Sadly, it was 4me to say goodbye to Mal, who had been a wonderful heir and will always be a darling Sim.  Will’s first official act as 
the new Stark heir was to start planning for the future.  If all goes according to that plan, Will, Arthur, and Sabriel will be liEing 
Gamer, Show Business, and Business respec4vely.  His next official act as heir involved helping Brandon decide who his successor 
as The Law will be.  More accurately, “successors,” as Arthur and Sabriel will be sharing the posi4on.  Also, in our latest soap opera 
development, BriNany told Julian that she’s pregnant.  Hilarity ensued. 

[Note: My new banner features a screenshot from the HBO trailer for A Game of Thrones (EEEE!).  Obviously, I don’t own this, 
either.  Only the Sims on the right are mine!]

At nine o’clock that morning, just like every other morning, Jan Tellerman walked downstairs to catch her ride to work.  But these 
were a diﬀerent set of stairs in a diﬀerent house, and the house s4ll didn’t feel like her own.  What was she doing here?  Wai4ng 
to marry someone she barely knew, and living in the same house with someone she had loved in the mean4me?  What had she 
been thinking?

She remembered tossing water balloons around with Will.  Now that had been a stupid idea if there ever was one, because the 
ground hadn’t even thawed.  But he seemed like a decent person, and she wanted to try to give him a chance.

But Jan wanted Will to stop smiling and stop trying to ﬂirt with her.  She should be okay with it, since it was what she had signed 
up for, but she s4ll wanted him to let her be.  At least Will didn’t look like…like Julian.

It was going to be okay.  Jan wouldn’t have to look at Will for a liNle less than a year, and maybe that would give her 4me to heal.  
She had to believe that this risk would pay oﬀ.

She learned that day that it was literally paying oﬀ in the form of a ﬁEy‐thousand dollar grant to fund her research.  Jan had not‐
so‐casually men4oned that she was going to be married to the new Stark heir.  Apparently, that really did mean that they were 
taking her more seriously at work.  The promo4on that she wanted didn’t feel so far out of reach now.

So Jan hit the books again, happier about her studies than she had ever been before.

There was s4ll so much to research.  Why did it snow all the 4me?  What else could you do with a computer?  Could the story that 
Sansa Stark used to have a telephone that she carried around in her pocket be true?

Some4mes, Chris joined her.  She had decided to use whatever 4me she had leE to max all her skills, which seemed like as good a 
way of coping as any other.

But she and Julian mostly avoided each other.  It had to be for the best.

So Jan mostly kept to herself and con4nued reading un4l she thought she had all the informa4on she needed to make her next 
proposal.  If everything went as planned, like it had lately, she would be in line for a promo4on.  Jan didn’t know if she dared to 
think about that, though.  What if it didn’t work out?

Brandon headed out of the bathroom and tried to smile.  Today was going to be a good day.  He would go in to work, issue the 
orders and opinions he had wriNen over the last week, and make his plans to turn the oﬃce over to Arthur and Sabriel.

“The opinion of the trial court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.  It 
is so ordered.”

Brandon leE the courtroom right aEer handing down his opinion to go to the oﬃce. Some4mes, he wanted to talk to the people 
in the courtroom, but it was probably more professional to go.  The Law was supposed to be a liNle distant.   

How many more of those opinions would he have a chance to write and hand down?

“Hi, Brandon,” his assistant said as he walked into the office. 

“Hi, Natalie.”  Brandon gave her a finger‐gun.  “What’s going on?” 

“The usual.  I finished proofreading your opinion in the fraud case, and you’re mee4ng with Piper in about fiEeen minutes.”

“Shit.  I forgot he was coming.”

“He’s not that bad, Brandon.” 

“That’s because you were swooning over him the last 4me he was here.” 

“No, I wasn’t.”  Natalie shook her head.

“I know what swooning looks like.  My brother’s a Romance Sim.”  Brandon walked a few paces away from Natalie’s desk, then 
turned back.  “Anyway, you’re never going to admit it.  Why am I mee4ng with him?”

“It’s the monthly mee4ng about new legisla4on.”  Natalie stared at Brandon as if something was wrong with him.  Maybe 
something was. 

“Great.”  Brandon pointed as if he was arguing a case.  “Let’s see what he’s managed to talk the Lollipop Guild into vo4ng for this 
4me.”

“They’re just ordinary people, Brandon,” Natalie said.  “Like me.  They’re not poli4cians.  They’re just trying to pass some decent 
laws that’ll help people when they’re not at their day jobs.  I think it’s noble of them.” 

Brandon didn’t share Natalie’s op4mism, but he didn’t want to ﬁght with her when he’d have to ﬁght with Piper in a few minutes.  
“Noble or not, the problem is that he’s a poli4cian.  Not that I want to talk about Piper any more than I have to.”

So he changed the subject: “I liked going to see the kids at Oldtown last weekend.” 

“How are they doing?”  Natalie asked. 

“Fantas4c.”  Brandon smiled.  “I can’t say enough good things about these kids.  Some4mes, I can’t believe I helped raise them.  
Will’s going to be a great heir, and Arthur and Sabriel…”  Brandon stopped talking, suddenly aware that it might not be a good idea 
to tell everyone about them.  Even though he trusted Natalie with a lot of things, he had been preNy forthcoming about his plans 
for Lily to succeed him.  Look what had happened.

“Everybody likes Arthur,” he con4nued.  “He likes almost everyone, but he’s no pushover.  And Sabriel can be a liNle scary, but in a 
good way.  You know what I mean?” 

“Not really.”

Brandon thought about that.  “She’s intense,” he said.  “If there’s something she wants, she won’t stop un4l she gets it.  Barely 
thinks of anything else.  And she wanted to be the heir.  I was worried about her, but when I came to see them, she looked beNer 
than ever.  All three kids were gebng along, and she had all kinds of plans for what she was going to do aEer college.”  He smiled 
again.  “I am so proud of these kids.”

Someone knocked.  “Great,” Brandon muNered, before raising his voice to say, “Come in.”

The door to his oﬃce opened to admit Pius Piper.  Somehow, he always looked like he was amused about something.  Brandon 
didn’t like that.  Mal had smiled all the 4me, but Mal did it because he was just that nice.  Piper’s smile looked more like a smirk to 
Brandon.   

What troubled him more was the fact that no one else seemed to no4ce.  Somehow, Piper had managed to gather a coali4on in 
the legislature that passed laws that weren’t in anyone’s interest, with the “once ﬁred, you’re out” law at the top of the list.  Was 
Brandon just being paranoid, or was he just the only one who wasn’t being hoodwinked?

“Hello, Piper,” Brandon said.  “I guess you’ve come to talk about the household size law, and it’s simple.  There s4ll isn’t a ghost of 
a chance—“ 

“Allow me to explain—“

“What would you have us do if there are more than six people in a household?  Toss so‐called ‘extra’ people into the snow with 
nowhere to go?  I can’t believe you’re advoca4ng for such an inhumane law.”

“The only inhumane thing is when so many people are crammed into such 4ny buildings,” Piper replied.  “Have you lived in a 
house with more than six people?” 

“I have.  My brothers, my sister‐in‐law, and my nieces and nephews.  It was cramped, but it’s not exactly the health and ﬁre hazard 
you think.  Separa4ng people from their families—that’s cruel.”

Piper con4nued as if Brandon hadn’t said anything.  “Your concerns about people being unceremoniously thrown into the snow 
are touching, but everything will be beNer this way.  Business will come along and pick up any slack.”

“Do you think I was born yesterday?  Private business hasn’t ‘come along’ since…”  Since when?  How many years had it been 
since his grandmother returned to start rebuilding?  Never mind that his niece was planning something that would hopefully 
negate the impact of this law if it was passed.  How could anyone vote for this?

“While you try to remember, we can discuss what I actually came to talk about,” Piper said.  “Tell us—who’s going to be next?” 

“Next?”

“Who’s going to be your successor?”  Piper asked, clasping his hands.

Brandon put his hands on his hips.  “You’ll ﬁnd out.  I’m not dead yet.”

“I understand if you don’t want to say,” he con4nued.  “It is a pity that Lily can’t do it.  But wouldn’t it make a more orderly 
transi4on if we all knew who it was going to be?”

“Yeah—I don’t care about that.” 

“Oh, surely you don’t think—”

“How about if you get the hell out of my oﬃce if you don’t have anything else to say.”

Piper didn’t say anything at ﬁrst, but eventually, he smiled again.  “If that’s what you want.  Goodbye, Brandon Stark.”

Brandon tried to glare at Piper as he walked away before turning to the computer to ﬁnish the will.

I leave the oﬃce of Law of Winterfell to Arthur and Sabriel Stark, and to the heirs of Arthur and Sabriel Stark, so that they may 
interpret the laws of Winterfell and advise the legislature on the wisdom of their laws, he typed.  Signed on this date the 27th of 
December, BRANDON STARK. 

It was done.  He would print the document and sign it, with Natalie to witness the signing of his will.

Life was more fun when you had a job to do, Sabriel reﬂected.

Especially if you could take breaks to build snowmen, because economics classes were mind‐numbingly boring, and law books 
weren’t much beNer.  Just when Sabriel had thought they had all the books that they could possibly read, someone would deliver 
another cartload to their house.  They were all so heavy.  Statute books.  Court opinions.  Rules of evidence.  Model jury 
instruc4ons.  How were she and Arthur supposed to read all of them?  For that maNer, how were they supposed to take all the 
books back to Winterfell with them?

Maybe that was how Arthur got his idea. 

“There’s so much in these books,” Arthur said to Sabriel.  “Shouldn’t there be some way to sum them up in just a few pages?  Just 
so anyone who’s wondering what the Code is all about can look at those pages and say, that’s what it’s about.”

“There should,” Sabriel said.  “How the law works in a thousand words or less, or something.  Just so that if you’re not familiar 
with it, you can read it.  And so if you have any ques4ons about how a law works, you can go back to that statement and ﬁgure it 
out from there.”

“Like a set of principles?”  Arthur asked.  “Preven4ng anarchy, equality before the courts, that sort of thing?”

“Yeah.”  Sabriel grinned.  “We really are going to be good at this, Arthur!”

They also greeted almost everyone who walked by and recruited them to be either study partners or sounding boards for their 
studies of the legal system.   

“No way,” Frances said.  “The law does not say that you’re not guilty of a crime unless the judge ﬁnds you did it beyond a 
reasonable doubt.” 

“Told you he wouldn’t believe it,” Sabriel told Arthur, not looking up from her book.

“Yeah,” Arthur said, not turning away from the screen.  “There’s a case here where a lawyer tried to argue that ‘beyond a 
reasonable doubt’ only meant a 75% chance of guilt.  From the transcript, it looks like Uncle Brandon laughed him out of court.”

“But don’t you want dangerous criminals locked away, even if you don’t have so much proof but just know?”  Frances asked. 

“It makes sense at ﬁrst,” Sabriel said.  “It looks like it made sense to Uncle Brandon at ﬁrst, but too many innocent people wound 
up gebng locked up.  He didn’t want that.”

When Arthur didn’t have to study or go to class, he liked going up to the third ﬂoor hot tub to relax.

Sabriel s4ll did not like chess, but she was learning that it was necessary.   She needed logic skill for almost everything that she 
wanted to do, and it couldn’t hurt during adventures if she had to ﬁgure out some kind of riddle to avoid a fatal trap or decide 
whether to cut the red wire or the blue wire.

Some4mes she s4ll thought about being the heir, but not very oEen.  They were all working too hard to think about that.  What 
was the point?

And when the computer was free, Will used it to start wri4ng a novel.

“Arthur, Will actually is wri4ng a romance novel now.  Help.”  Sabriel told him during a game of red hands.

“This doesn’t have to be a crisis.”  Arthur tried to grab one of Sabriel’s hands, but she snatched it away.  “He’s not publishing it, is 
he?” 

“I don’t know.  It might just be to increase his crea4vity.” 

“Okay.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” 

“And in the mean4me, I wouldn’t suggest reading it.”

Like Sabriel, Will also spent a lot of 4me at the chessboard, though he didn’t hate it as much as she did.  By now, moving the 
pieces had almost become mechanical as he thought up diﬀerent strategies for each side and played them to their conclusions.  It 
was a good way to think.

So far, things were going well, but Will was star4ng to feel trapped at college.  Arthur and Sabriel were in their own world a lot of 
the 4me, and there wasn’t much to do but skill.  The real world wasn’t going to be anything like this.  Why was he s4ll here?

“You brooding again?”  Arthur asked, sibng down across from Will. 

“I guess.” 

“What about?”

“Sabriel didn’t want to be forgoNen,” Will said.  “I don’t want that, either.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“What’s going to happen once I’m out there?”  Will asked.  “I want to be there—I don’t know what’s leE for me to do here—but I 
can’t be excited about going home when I don’t have any idea what I’m in for.”

“What’s leE for you to do?  Enjoy the next few months while you can,” Arthur said.  He s4ll didn’t know what to make of the “not 
wan4ng to be forgoNen” comment, so he ignored that.  “You don’t have to spend all your 4me on your plan.  Come up to the hot 
tub and chill some4me.  And if you keep up what you did with gebng both of us—me and Sabriel to be the Law, then everything’s 
going to be ﬁne once you get home, too.”

Sabriel had less pa4ence for Will’s bad moods. 

“Don’t be a dork,” she told him.  “You’re no fun when you’re all up in your head.  And I want you to wake up instead of moving 
pieces like you’re s4ll playing against yourself.  I’d rather have you using all your logic points so you can actually appreciate it when 
I take your queen in a few moves.”

Will couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen or had already happened, though.  He decided to go 
for a walk, but didn’t make it far before mee4ng a girl outside the house.

“I thought I’d seen a ghost out there!”  Katy Hart told Will.  “I’d been hoping to see a ghost, but I didn’t think it’d be like this, if 
what I saw even was a ghost…” She shuddered.  “But you wanted to know what had me walking by your house at this 4me of 
night, and that was it.” 

“Why don’t you come in, then?”  Will asked.  “At least un4l the ghost is gone?”

“I’m glad you didn’t mind coming in for a game,” Will said as he set out the chess pieces.  “Usually I just play against my brother or 
sister.  Or against myself.”

“Really?”  she asked.  “A Romance Sim like you, playing against yourself?”

“I—How did you know I was Romance?”  Will asked.

“Oh, it’s preNy easy to tell,” Jan Tellerman said, her eyes narrowed.

Will dropped his chess piece.  “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Katy said, not looking up from the chessboard.  “Not yet, anyway.”

“Right.”  Will looked down again. 

Katy didn’t even look like Jan.  Their features were totally diﬀerent, except for the color of their eyes.  They had the same cold, 
blue eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I think I’d beNer get back to studying.”

Katy got up.  “You sure?” she asked.  “It didn’t seem like you wanted to study to me.”

“No.  I didn’t—but I should.”  Will waved.  “Hopefully I’ll see you around.”

Apocalypse of Ice Chapter 11.2

But aside from reminders of responsibility, things went well at the house for the next few months.

“Arthur and I have ﬁnals in a few hours,” Sabriel said over that night’s spagheb.   

“Good luck.” 

“Thanks.  We’ll probably be gone when the taxi comes for you, though.”

“Right.  I’d forgoNen about the taxi.”  Here it was, then.  He’d been wai4ng to go back to Winterfell ever since the end of his last 
visit, but now he wanted to stay at the college house and leave responsibility alone.

“Hey, don’t go glum,” Sabriel said.  “I know Arthur and I are awesome and you’re going to miss us a ton, but you’ll be ﬁne.  You’d 
beNer be.  I don’t want to have to come by the house and smack you.”

Will forced a laugh.  “Thanks for the vote of conﬁdence there.”

“You bet.”  Sabriel paNed him on the shoulder.  “It’s like there are two versions of you: the heir who can be awesome and the just 
plain idio4c big brother.  Stay the ﬁrst version.”

“I’ll try.”  Will hugged her.  “Good luck with college and the rest of those ﬁnals—I mean, ﬁnals and the rest of college.  I’ll try to get 
away every so oEen and visit.”

“Bye, Will,” Arthur said next.  “I hope your plan works, because I don’t want to wait another three years before seeing you again.”

“I hope so, too,” Will said.  “At least you can probably call me while the phones are working, if you need to.  I usually couldn’t do 
that because I was working too hard trying to stay alive.”  That seemed like such a long 4me ago now.  Had Will really survived 
three years without everything he took for granted?  “And I’ll call you when I can.  I’ll probably need legal advice or just plain 
brother advice.”

“I think I can do that,”  Arthur said.  “Good luck, Will.”

“You too.”  Will hugged Arthur.  “Find a nice guy.  Or several.”

When the doorbell rang, Will got up from the chess table and asked no one in par4cular, “Do I have to?”

Then he answered himself, “Yes,” and started his transi4on.

The results were neither especially awesome nor especially terrible, but Will thought a confeb shower always did wonders for 
self‐esteem.

So Will changed into his outerwear and leE the house he had transformed with his brother and sister behind.

Aliena gave birth to her son in the middle of the night, not long aEer a burglar had snuck into the house and made off with most 
of the furniture on the first floor.  She and Jocelyn named him Kay.

Some4mes, it seemed like he had more than his share of childhood illnesses, but Kay eventually grew into a toddler who didn’t 
like anything as much as trying to crawl down the stairs and hated nothing more than being alone.

It took a long 4me for him to start speaking.  Once he did, the smile stayed on Ali’s face for days.

Jocelyn kept trying to ﬁgure out just how her wife had goNen pregnant, but her confusion over where this baby came from didn’t 
stop her from giving him a few snuggles before returning to her books.

Even Alayne liked Kay.  Ali no4ced that she seemed more like herself aEer playing with him.  She didn’t know what “herself” 
meant for one of the undead, but she had expected to meet someone like this, who seemed to care about her baby almost as 
much as she did.  As she watched Alayne sit by her son as he played with his toy rabbit, Ali remembered that everyone had liked 
Sansa.

“I had…” Alayne trailed oﬀ as she looked down at Kay’s crib.  “No.  I had a daughter.  Did I?” 

Ali nodded.  “Her name was Eowyn.”

“Eowyn,” she said, hugging herself as if she could hug her daughter that way.  “She…she must have had such a hard 4me…”  She 
turned back to Ali.  “What happened to her?”

Ali knew some of her story, but she didn’t want to upset Alayne when she was ac4ng normally for once.  “She put up a good ﬁght,” 
Ali said.  “She did her best.”

“Good,” Alayne said.  “I want to do my best, too.” 

“I know.”

That was the problem.  Alayne didn’t stay kind.   

“Yes,” she said to someone on the other end of the phone, giggling like a teenager.  “Yes, that’s me.”  Alayne paused.  “Of course.  I 
would be happy—no, delighted—to meet with you.  I can leave for work early and meet—yes, there, at 9:30.  Excellent.”

“What is she doing?”  Aliena asked Jocelyn. 

“Does it maNer?”  Jocelyn asked.  “She’s her own person.”

“She’s not.  She should be dead.”  Ali stared into space.  Every 4me she had thought this could be over, she thought, everything 
became jumbled again.

“But she isn’t.  And as long as she’s not dead…” Jocelyn trailed oﬀ.  “I’m not saying that I feel comfortable around her.  But I don’t 
have anything beNer to suggest than what we’re doing now.  And maybe she’s changing.  She cares about Kay.  Maybe he can help 
her.”  Jocelyn reached for Ali’s hand.  “Hold on.  It might not be as bad as you think.”

Ali disagreed, but she didn’t have anything concrete to back up her suspicions un4l the day that Kay called Alayne “mama.” 

“I’m not one of your mamas,” she said to him.  “I’m Sansa.  Say it with me.” 

“San‐sa.” 

“Good.”  She smiled and reached out to 4ckle him.

“Who?”  Kay asked.  

“Who am I?” 

Kay nodded his head.

“I made this place,” Alayne said.  “Everything you and your mamas have?  It was because of me.  I did that.  And I want to do more 
for you.”  She held Kay 4ghtly.  “You’ll let me do that, won’t you?”

Aliena narrowed her eyes.  She had heard enough.  Alayne had to go for Kay’s own good.  How could her own son think that 
woman was one of his mothers?  Who knew what else she would tell him?  Who knew if Kay would believe it?  Her decision was 
made, and she would not give Jocelyn a chance to sway her. 

“Alayne,” she said.

“Just a minute.”  The other woman set Kay down in his crib and hugged him before turning to Ali, looking as innocent as ever.  Ali 
tried not to scream as she watched her baby reach out to the woman.  “What is it?” 

“You need to leave.”

“Get away from my son.  You need to leave.”

“What do you mean?”  Alayne asked, smiling.  It almost looked genuine. 

“I don’t want someone like you near my son.”

She would have said more, but Alayne interrupted her: “Someone like me?”  Her voice rose.  “You really think that I’m a bad 
inﬂuence on him, when I can do so much more for him than you ever could?” 

“You’re not his mother!”

“Aliena, pubng on her uniform and running oﬀ to play the hero,” Alayne sneered.  “You wouldn’t know a hero if she was living 
right next to you.  Answer me this: Do you really think that you can stop me from doing anything I want to do?  What makes you 
think you ever had any control over me?” 

“Alayne—“

“SANSA.  My name is Sansa.  Don’t you ever call me that name again.”  She raised her ﬁst.  “I did more than you can ever begin to 
imagine, and I’m just gebng started.  And now you want to give up your last bit of control over me.”  She laughed.  “Your last iNy 
biNy shred of control…”

Ali wondered if she was doing the right thing, but that was probably what Alayne wanted her to think.  Besides, she had wanted to 
be free of the woman for years.  “Go.”

“I need to make a phone call before you throw me out.” 

“Why?” 

“So I can have a place to go.  You wouldn’t toss me out into the snow, all cold and alone, without anyone at all to help me, would 
you?  You’re not like that.  You think you’re beNer than that.”  Alayne laughed again.

Ali opened and closed her mouth.  The phones probably wouldn’t be working, anyway.  “Try your luck.  But you’re out aEer two 
minutes.”

Amazingly, aEer all her protests and insane ramblings, the woman who might have been Sansa Stark was gone.  Everything would 
be all right.  Kay would be safe.  Jocelyn would be just as relieved as she was.  Now, Ali could live in peace again—as much peace 
as she could with a toddler upstairs who would probably start screaming any second now.  She sat down with her salad and began 
to eat, ﬁnally feeling free.

No.  This wasn’t right.

But aEer a few bites, she knew that something had gone terribly wrong.  She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t even breathe.

Her last word came out, barely audible: “A—layne—“

Next 4me on An Apocalypse of Ice: 

+ Will comes home and starts seNling in as heir. 
+ Time to start liEing restric4ons again! 
+ And the 4me comes to transfer power over to Arthur and Sabriel.

Kay, you are adorable.  I’m sorry.  His personality is 10/2/9/3/1 (Virgo), and this is not the last you’ll be seeing of him. 

Happy Simming!

Apocalypse of Ice Chapter 11.2

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Apocalypse of Ice Chapter 11.2