Closed: An Ersatz Guardian

[biteybaby]

Like most people Sunny's age, she tends to wake up bright and early. Unlike most people Sunny's age, Magnu Chase is normally at her house when she wakes up these days. She honestly just expects it at this point. Today Sunny wakes up and her first stop is, of course, the potty. She's very proud of herself for making it all the way through the night without peeing in her diaper! Potty lessons have been going well. She even found some fancy diapers that she can pull up and get on all by herself, so she barely needs any help at all these days. She's a very independent woman, after all.

Far and Apu are still sleeping, so Sunny is very quiet as she picks out an outfit to wear, and she's very quiet as she gets Magnu to help her put on the outfit, and she's very quiet as she spills Lucky Charms all over the place while pouring them into a little baggy to carry with her on the adventures she and Magnu are going to have today.

Eventually Sunny is all ready to go, she even has a sippy cup of watered down apple juice (Magnu took care of that one, after the Lucky Charms mishap), and they are out the door ready to go.

"Plans?" Sunny asks, by which she means, "What are we going to do today?"

Comments

[summerdude]

Magnus finishes cleaning up the Lucky Charms and leaves his standard note on the table, which reads: HEY FAMILY, KIDNAPPED MY LITTLE SISTER AGAIN, I'LL HAVE HER BACK BY TEN. LOVE YOU! XOXOXOXOXO MAGNUS. Sometimes he crosses out the time and puts a different time instead, but it's generally always the same exact note on the same piece of folded-up paper growing soft and thin at the seams. It's getting really extra creased from living in his pockets most of the time.

"I don't know," he whispers, as they walk a little ways away from the house. He gets louder the further off they get. "Is there anything you're in the mood for in particular? We could... go up to the Mansion for some games. Or we could go to the tower to explore. Or we could go in the caves. Or to the beach. Or on the roof. Or back to camp."

[biteybaby]

"Caves!" she decides on.

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, holding out his hand for a high five for a decision well-made. "Breakfast first or breakfast there?"

[biteybaby]

"Ummmmmmmmmmmm breakfast there."

[summerdude]

"Walk or piggyback ride?"

[biteybaby]

"Piggy ride!" Sunny thinks that sounds more fun than walking today. Plus, since Magnu has all of his dead person magic, he can probably get them there faster that way too.

[summerdude]

"You got it, boss." Magnus swings his backpack to his front and kneels down so Sunny can climb up.

[biteybaby]

Sunny climbs on, and holds on tight.

[summerdude]

Once Sunny is on and Magnus has checked that she's secure, he galumphs toward the entrance to the caves that's further off from the section Little John claimed as his home. In this part of the caves, an underwater stream tumbles between curtains of rock and crystal. Cave crickets and other little critters can be found here and there, and since there are few cracks in the rocks for light, Magnus calls up a heatless burst of sunlight to follow them.

[biteybaby]

This cave is nothing like the cave Sunny visited with Aunt Josephine. For one thing, there's no sign out front that it is for sale, so she's pretty sure realtors are not going to arrive. She also thinks that it is a lot more pleasant than that cave was, though that might be largely due to Magnu's sunlight and the fact that there isn't a hurricane on the way. For Sunny, at least. Other places, on other planets, in other universes might have hurricanes on the way.

"Where eat?" she asks, wondering where they are going to go to have snacks.

[summerdude]

"Wherever you'd like," says Magnus, who loves just how opinionated Sunny can be about everything. "Want me to set you down so we can explore?"

[biteybaby]

"Uh huh!"

[summerdude]

Magnus eases her to the ground. "I hate to say it, but I would maybe not try biting things in here," he tells her. "Some of them might hurt your mouth."

[biteybaby]

"Rocks?" she asks.

[summerdude]

"Sharp rocks," Magnus agrees. "And... there are some critters, but Galahad hasn't looked them up yet so I don't know if they're, like, poisonous or anything."

[biteybaby]

"Oh." She doesn't think the sharp rocks would be a problem, she did climb up a 66 story tall concrete wall several times a few months ago using her teeth, but poison is dangerous. "Won't. Only eat cereal."

[summerdude]

"If there's anything that looks particularly biteable, maybe we can put it in my backpack and take it back to look up first."

[biteybaby]

Sunny walks around a little, exploring, until she finds a nice flat rock jutting out from the wall. She points at it. "Sit here?" She needs help getting up on it though.

[summerdude]

"Totally. Do you want a boost or a lift?" Magnus asks -- they've been working on Magnus using his body as an extra ledge she can use to clamber up things if she doesn't feel like getting picked up.

[biteybaby]

"Yeah, climb!" she says, and then begins climbing up Magnu so she can sit on the rock.

[summerdude]

Magnus winces as her knee goes right into his side, but he holds steady so that she can make her way to the ledge on her own steam.

[biteybaby]

She clambers on to the rock and turns back around to sit very comfortably, completely unaware that she kneed Magnu in the side at all. "Pickick time!"

[summerdude]

"Picnic time!" Magnus agrees. He opens his backpack to unload cereal and juice. He also has some granola bars from camp, in case that suits her fancy, and adds them to the array of stuff on the ledge next to her.

[biteybaby]

Sunny likes cereal best when it is like this. Not floating around in milk that makes it mushy. She grabs a handful out of the baggie and shoves it in her mouth. "Agnu," she says, trying to say 'Magnu' with a mouth full of cereal, then changes course when she realizes it's harder to speak like that. Sunny need talk, she signs.

[summerdude]

Magnus chews his enormous bite of granola bar and swallows it. "What's up?" he asks.