Open: The difference between arson and a birthday party is the number of candles.

[biteybaby]

On the day of her birthday, Sagramore takes Sunny out for an early ride on Fenyes. The foal is due any week now, but Sunny is so little that it’s fine for her to sit on top of Fenyes’ back, in the groove that seems perfectly made for a rider, while Sagramore leads her around by the bridle – and it keeps them out of the house long enough for Laertes and Magnus to put the plan of her party into action.

Laertes uses the brief window of time well--he has his cake pans selected, his parchment paper already cut to shape, and his chocolate frosting mixed ahead of time, and all that remains is to mix the chocolate cake batter and to bake it. To delight his daughter's many teeth, he's selected a mix of sprinkles with several different textures of crunch.

For her part, Sunny knows several things. She knows her birthday is likely very soon, and that Magnus thinks she should have a party. They talked about it some, back at the wedding. She also knows that they are going to have company over today, though she didn’t give that much thought, as they often have company over, and nobody specified how many people would be arriving. However, she has yet to put these facts together, and as a result is unaware that her birthday and subsequent party are today.

Magnus has been secreting things away in the shed where he and Galahad found Drosera for weeks — they're not precisely close, but they're close enough that he can move things over in fairly short order. The crucial supplies include several card tables, a KIERKLAAND-brand dinosaur-themed bounce house and slide with an attached battery-powered blower, with enough stakes that it should be fine for an adult to go in with her whenever she wants, and so many balloons, streamers, and ribbons. A more recent addition to the lot includes loads of additional party-appropriate snacks: crudités trays with dips, apples for slicing with caramel dippers on the side, and a couple of kinds of chips. Also, most importantly, Magnus's gifts.

Once the bouncy house is anchored to the ground and inflating, Magnus starts setting up the tables, tying balloons to ribbons and arraying them around the tables and yard and, frankly, tossing the streamers all over the place. Finally, and based in part on some magazine articles he's read on throwing parties and showers (a birthday party for a two year old is basically a baby shower, right?) he puts out some signs: GIFTS GO HERE on one card table, and BOOKS GO HERE on another. (They asked each attendee to bring a book to contribute to Sunny's personal library in lieu of cards in the party invitations, preferably a children's book with personal meaning and significance but with no true limitations.) The final card table gets the polaroid camera and some silly costume components — funny hats, disguise glasses, feather boas — so people can document the occasion. He has secret plans to take the resulting photos and make a little album of them for the family.

So it is that when Sagramore finally brings Sunny home again, riding on his shoulders, everything is ready for her – including Sagramore’s own gift, as abysmally wrapped as one might imagine, and sitting on the outside eating table, which has been reserved for that purpose.

Sunny has never seen a party so large before, that clearly took so much planning. Her first birthday party, though lovely and a lot of fun, was nothing like this. Her eyes dart all around, at all of her friends who have come, all of the gifts they were kind enough to bring for her, and at all of the activities her family have planned, all with her in mind. There's an overwhelming mix of emotions running through her small body, but she quickly settles on happy and excited. She wipes a couple of rogue tears from her cheeks before turning to her Apu, pointing at the bounce house, and asking, "Can I go jump?"

Comments

[kadewest]

In the interest of his fledgling truce with his friend's child, Kade has made Sunny several outfits. The first is an overall dress, made out of a light denim, with shiny, bite-resistant button closures for the straps and a nice big pocket on each side. The next is a dinosaur-patterned top, lightweight for summer; it can be worn under the dress or with a pair of matching elastic-waist bloomers, which are ruffled enough they could pass for a skirt. The final outfit is a fancy outfit, if by fancy we mean 'many, many pockets, just so many pockets, like all the pockets a two-year-old could possibly need and then some' made in a soft, shiny blue fabric.

These are wrapped neatly in scrap fabric with a big bow, sewn that it can be used as a headband if Sunny feels so inclined. The book Kade has chosen is The Paper Bag Princess.

[biteybaby]

Hmmmmmmmn...

There are nice outfits. Lots of pockets, so she can bring cheerios with her when she and Magnu go out on their daily adventures, without needing to bother him about getting them out of his bag.

Her mental 'Pros and Cons' list regarding whether or not Kade is a creep reluctantly gets a mark for the 'Pros' side.

[vineleaves]

Dionysus arrives fashionably early, somehow managing to carry several ...somewhat large gifts. His main gift for Sunny is an Easy Bake Oven, along with a few extra packs of the cake mixes and such for it. For a book, he actually brings two. Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg, because she likes listening to the Seussical cast recording so much. This isn't all he's bringing, however, because he also has a floor piano mat and a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends from Apollo, who decided... not to show up. Dionysus knows a little of the situation, enough to feel conflicted about the whole thing.

To make it worse, at one point during the party, when he is talking with the birthday girl herself, she asks where he is. Dionysus hesitates, then explains that Uncle Polly had to help out his new cows, and that maybe tomorrow Auntie Sissy can take her to go meet the cows herself if she would like. It's an incredibly flimsy excuse, one Apollo told Dionysus he could tell if someone asked, during the... conversation they had, where Apollo said he wasn't going to the party. He can tell that Sunny also thinks it's a flimsy excuse. Her little round face absolutely falls when he tells her Polly can't make it, and it breaks his heart to see, but soon enough she seems to recover, thank goodness.

[recognizance]

At some point while Sunny is busy jumping, and everyone else seems to be either watching her jump or conversing with each other about how cute she is, SecUnit sidles up and slides two books onto the designated table: Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dinosaur's Binkit by Sandra Boynton.

(Showing Lan Zhan the children's section of the library reminded it to look through the selection itself. The books it settled on both have cute pictures, and are about activities it knows Sunny likes (biting stuff and stomping around, respectively). It brought two because it has no idea what kind of other thing to give a tiny human.)

Then it makes good its escape.

[biteybaby]

Sunny does, indeed, love biting stuff and stomping around. She will love the books almost as much as she regrets having missed seeing Win at her party.

[sagramore]

Sunny's birthday celebration has, probably, gotten a little out of hand -- but on the other hand, it's only her second birthday, and her first one with her new family, and there are so many people who love her and will want to see her. Sagramore and Laertes have resigned themselves to the fact that she'll get a little spoiled and overstimulated for one day. They'll have plenty more years ahead for smaller, more intimate family celebrations.

Still, out of a sense of sentimentality if nothing else, Sagramore waits until many of the guests have left and it's just Magnus and Alex and Laertes to bring the soft wrapped package over to the blanket on the grass where Sunny is gnawing on some leftover crudites.

"Art thou ready for thy gift from me, little rabbit?"

[biteybaby]

It has been a very exciting, very long day. Sunny likes it when her favorite people are all gathered together like this. It was her favorite part of the pancake sleepover party, having so many people she liked at her house, and it has been her favorite part of today as well. This is surely because she is just an outgoing young woman, and has nothing at all to do with the fact that one time she went to the beach with her two older siblings and while she wasn't looking her parents perished in a sudden and tragic fire.

Even good things have to end some time, so though she's sad her friends have all gone back to their own homes (well, mostly just the mansion, really, but they all have individual homes inside the mansion) she's happy that they were all able to come by and visit, and jump with her inside the inflatable bounce house, and she's really glad that everyone was so generous to bring her presents. There were so many presents she doesn't know how she's going to remember who got her what, in order to write them all thank you cards later! Of course, she also does not know how to write, but that's a problem for Later Sunny. There also were so many presents that she doesn't even realize she didn't open one from Apu yet, until he comes over and mentions it. Honestly, at first she assumed the party itself was the gift, and she would have been fine with that.

"Nother gift?" she asks, excited.

[bymyheelies]

Mercutio has probably spent a good deal of the day jumping with Sunny in her bounce house. However, off to the side he has left his gifts, unwrapped because a small skateboard was too large to wrap properly. Of course, it comes with a helmet and appropriate safety gear; something Mercutio would not think of on his own. He has chosen a book about one of his favorite topics: fairies, with nice illustrations he hopes Sunny will enjoy looking at. Of course, they are not quite the same sort of fairies he speaks of; but those are hardly suitable topics for a two-year-old. Hopefully the gifts will be well-received, and he intends to try the skateboard out with Sunny as soon as she is willing.

[biteybaby]

Oh, Haddington yeah! Skateboard!

[summerdude]

At some point, after the party starts winding down a little and before Magnus gives Sunny her gifts -- though he's dutifully placed Where the Wild Things Are and the silly little comic zine he made (his artistic style is still very much 'seventh grader doodling manga in his school notes'), half of which depicts Sunny as a Godzilla wrecking havoc over a building that could, conceivably, be Count Olaf's stupid mansion and half of which depicts a family of six Godzillas having dinner together -- he nabs some alone time with her in the bounce house.

"Good birthday so far?" he asks.

[biteybaby]

Sunny is lying on the floor of the bounce house, temporarily worn out from all of the bouncing. "Uh huh!" she says, with a wide grin.

[aflashbastard]

Crowley normally doesn't do children's birthday parties. Not that he's ever invited to any. He's only ever been to one before and it went pretty terribly, what with Aziraphale performing awful magic and being bullied by multiple small children for it, Aziraphale getting cake all over the inside of his Bentley, and Aziraphale accidentally killing a dove-- Hm, perhaps there's a common denominator there, but he's not going to be the one to say it. Oh, and the realization that they had lost the Antichrist. That was also pretty terrible.

It is Sunny's birthday, though, so maybe this one will be different. Besides, she's not really a child. She's an independent young woman and about to ascend to another level of independent young woman-ness. So Crowley's there, looking a bit awkward as always. He's tossed a couple of books onto the books table: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark -- and he currently has a wrapped gift in his hands.

[biteybaby]

Sunny spots her bestest friend Crowley and runs right over to him, wrapping her arms around his legs in a very excited hug. "Crowley! I'm two!" she tells him, using entirely big girl words so there is no need for a translation.

[temnota]

Aleksander had thought long and hard about Sunny's presents. There was no doubt about what book - he had charmed a copy of The Language of Thorns from the library. This was not just any copy, but a beautifully illustrated version with bright colors and exciting pictures. Deciding what to make her, on the other hand, was hard. He'd wanted to make her something special, something that she would love and treasure.

Then inspiration hit. He'd been carving various animals for her so why not build her a little farm set that could also double as a storage box for them? Doing this had taken time (and more then a few scraped fingers) but he was proud of the end result. There was a barn for the animals to go in and out as they pleased and space for them to graze in the yard. He'd even managed a little house that somewhat resembled her own and had plans for presenting her with little versions of her family throughout the year.

Did he go overboard? Possibly but it was all worth it to make sure Sunny had the best birthday.

[biteybaby]

It's perfect, she'll be able to play with her animals even better now! And since she can use it to store them all in, she figures it doesn't actually count as taking up any more space than the toys already do, which helps with her concerns about needing to keep things in the shed.

[untamedantinous]

Enjolras is not accustomed to giving presents to small children. He likely hasn't since he was a small child himself, having mostly chosen to lose contact with his family throughout his years in Paris. However, he is quite a fan of reading himself, and so the request for books inspired him somewhat. One set of books he has placed on the table with all the others: a box set of philosophy suitable for children. The other somewhat literary gift is a simplified, child-friendly version of The Social Contract, printed on his press and with helpful, hopefully Enjolras-approved illustrations done by Grantaire. He is uncertain of what Sunny will think of the choice of reading material, but he hopes her fathers will appreciate it.

[biteybaby]

Sunny cannot read yet, but that isn't going to stop her! The next time Luci is over at her house for dinner she's definitely going to bring the handmade book over, plop herself down in his lap, and wait expectantly for him to start reading it to her.

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian has seen many festivals for many gods, and some festivals for important ghosts or demons. This looks much more like the former than the latter, but he knows Sunny is no heavenly official; it would be impossible for her to cultivate to ascension at her young age, and he's never heard of a god being de-aged like ghosts and demons occasionally are.¹ And the fact remains that this is clearly a place for tribute. He will have to gather some fruits, later, from the gardens; nothing he cooks will be fit for a demon queen.

For now, he slides a slim volume onto the table labelled for books: Lords of the Kiln: The Supreme Ghosts of Tonglu Mountain. He's not sure if she will enjoy it, but most rulers size up their competition in one way or another. It will at the very least be helpful. (He has annotated it so that Sunny will know that Qi Rong, while capable of horror, does not deserve the title of fourth Supreme and is only there to round out the number.) Then he sidles back through the crowd and away.

¹ His own a few weeks ago doesn't count. Clearly that was just the mansion spirits bringing in a sadder version of him, not explicitly a younger one.

[biteybaby]

Maybe it would be impossible for some people to cultivate to ascension at her young age, but Sunny can do whatever she sets her mind to. This sounds like a you problem.

She hasn't done that yet, but only because she hasn't set her mind to it so far.


The book is not only an appropriate tribute for her, but a very welcome one, and she can't wait to have not just this book, but all of the many books she's receiving today read to her later some time.

[futaille]

Grantaire of course comes to the party of the very best toddler in the mansion. Once the date of the party was set, he made sure that the paintings of the Baudelaires (a joint gift from Magnus and himself) were finished in time to add them to the gifts.

As for the book, he brings a slim volume of jokes and puns for kids that he found in the library. As soon as he laid eyes on it, he couldn't even think of something better.

[summerdude]

At a lull in the party where Sunny is between guests and gifts, Magnus sweeps her up onto his shoulders and carries her over to Grantaire. "We have something for you," he tells her.

[sporesprouter]

It was an interesting challenge for Tress to come up with the proper gifts for the occasion. It had been some time since she'd really had to consider gifts for children around Sunny's age, and her own worldview had expanded considerably since then. Not to mention the fact that there are significantly more resources available here to her than they were at the time.

But she is nothing if not determined. On the books table, she has placed a slim notebook in which she's carefully written down some of the first recipes she learned how to make when she was a child. And then for regular gifts, something that may not necessarily be as appreciated as some of the other gifts, but which will absolutely be useful. An array of small, Sunny-sized socks, in a wide variety of colors and patterns, meticulously hand-knit in different thicknesses to account for the coming seasons. (And yes, the thicker winter ones are larger to account for her future growth.)

[biteybaby]

Sunny, a toddler who once lost every single thing she owned other than the one outfit she happened to be wearing at the time, appreciates the socks just as much as she does any of the toys other people brought. It's still exciting to her that someone would not only want to give her a gift, but that it would be something so thought out and actually useful. The book of recipes is also just as exciting (if not more, to be quite honest). Sunny has discovered she loves cooking in the months she has been here, and even though she can't read yet, and needs adult supervision to operate an oven or a stove, she can't wait to start making some of the things Tress wrote down for her.

[ravkanwitch]

It took Nina a while to find and involved opening many drawers -- though with Rainbows in effect, less drawers than she expected -- but Nina has found some gold flake coated chocolates for Sunny! She's at the party herself, of course, but the small box of chocolates are a special delivery from Khitka. Will they give Sunny a golden core? Probably not. Are they safer to eat than a gold ring and will they give her a bit of a birthday sugar rush¹? Absolutely.

¹Cultivation?

[biteybaby]

Sunny has recently come to the conclusion that she was perhaps originally mistaken about the nature of what cultivation is. She has only ever seen Lan Wangji with regular, non-golden food. Regardless, she is very excited to see the chocolates, and even more excited that Khitka is delivering them!

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan spends a great deal of time hemming and hawing over the appropriate gift for a two-year-old child. She knows what's typically appropriate for the age, but she also knows that Sunny isn't a typical child. Lancelot, she knows, plans to give her a toy sword and shield. She isn't sure which book he's ultimately selected, but she also gave him an assortment of options: Winnie the Pooh, the Secret Garden, Peter Rabbit...

There's much to consider. Sunny likes art, clearly - she's drawn on quite a few walls of the Mansion. She seemed receptive to Susan's childhood self teaching her how to dance, as well. She likes biting and animals.

In the end, Susan considers what she knows of Sunny's adoptive fathers, as well. They live in a house they built with their own hands; Laertes has described the plumbing system at length and Susan herself helped with some of the shelving. Tucked away in one of the closets she sorted out early in her tenure here lies a construction set that didn't, at the time, have a clear purpose. She retrieves it and wraps it neatly for Sunny's birthday. It consists of a wooden box that can double as a work bench; inside, in neatly-organized compartments, there are a set of actually-usable tools. A toddler-safe measuring tape - large plastic holding case; thick tape that is bite-resistant (...for most children) and just stiff enough that it isn't an easy strangulation hazard, with accurate inch and centimeter marks. A hammer that can drive wooden pegs into drilled holes - though it shan't be useful for metal nails. A screwdriver shaped for toddler hands. A level. Taking up half the space is a set of practice tools with no real-world application beyond pretend play, so she can practice without a project or supervisory adult at hand. Inside, she tucks a little pot of childsafe paint and a brush, in case Sunny should like to decorate her creations or the box itself.

The book choice was much, much easier than the gift seleection. Susan, of course, has opted for one of E. Nesbit's works. She hasn't got a terrifically close relationship with Sunny, but she has fond memories of reading the Enchanted Castle to Lucy as a bed-time story when Lucy was quite young, and imagines Sunny might enjoy hearing it from her fathers as well.

[biteybaby]

Sunny knows a lot of things about Susan now that she didn't know before. She knows that Susan wasn't always so against beautiful murals. She knows that Susan one time ran away from home, even though her family is nice. She knows that Susan secretly is probably a very fine dancer. All of these facts are buried deep down inside Susan. Very deep. Deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep deep down.

That's probably why she hid the paint deep deep deep deep deep down inside the workbench-box. Either way though, the entire gift is nice, and Sunny is excited to use it next time her daddies are building something. She can help them, now that she has her own toolkit. When she opens the gift, she even gives Susan a hug along with her "Thank you!"

[lightbearinglord]

This occasion is not, naturally, Sunny's one-month celebration. Far from it. But it is the first celebration of her life that has yet occurred at the mansion, and for that reason, Lan Wangji arrives to the event well-prepared. Firstly, because they were asked to provide a book, he has slipped a copy of the Shijing onto that table. This is for several reasons: he loves poetry, and he hopes that Sunny may grow to love it as well; also, he knows that Crowley can understand Sunny, and frankly, he thinks it would be entertaining if Crowley were forced to do the reading for their impending poetry discussion club by the necessity of reading that poetry to a baby. Secondly, within that volume of poetry he has included a slender bookmark, made from peach wood¹ and carved in shallow relief with patterns of clouds and lotuses.

Finally, of course, at a lull in the proceedings, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both will find Sunny and present her with a red envelope stuffed tidily with a respectable amount of paper money. Lan Wangji would hardly have been willing to be a party to the impropriety of doing anything else.

¹Peach wood is protective against evil spirits and thus a traditional gift for babies.

[biteybaby]

When Sunny is home later, she hunts for a good hiding spot for the envelope with her new fortune inside. She doesn't want to let anyone know about it, not because she is feeling particularly greedy, or thinks she needs to save up for college, but because last time someone found out about her family's fortune it did not end very well for anyone involved. She is very thankful to them both for giving this gift to her, but she needs to figure out the best way to keep it -- and her new parents -- safe.