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

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

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?"

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

"Aye, canst thou countenance it? Perhaps thou hast had enough of gifts and thou dost not want another," he teases.

She isn't sure what "countenance" means, but she definitely has not had enough of gifts. "I do want!" she says, and then because she's worried that made her sound unpleasant and unlikable, like Carmelita Spats, she adds, "Please?"

Sagramore, overcome with love, kisses her on the very top of her head. Then he hands her the package.

Inside is a soft stuffed dog. It is not as nice or well-made as First Quigley, because he made it himself, but it has big blue eyes and floppy ears and a floppy tail, and it's brown, because that's the only thing she told him about First Quigley.

When Sunny gets the wrapping paper off, she gasps. She doesn't think it's the original Quigley, but she only had him for less than one day, so she can't be sure. "Found him?" she asks, quietly.

In general, he doesn't have any qualms about lying to children, but in this particular case he wants to be honest. "I didn't find him. I've made thee a Second Quigley."

"Thou -- madested him?" Sunny looks at the toy again. It looks absolutely perfect, as far as she is concerned. Very floppy. The eyes are nice and blue, which she does think is fitting for a toy named after one of the Quagmire triplets, since that is the color sapphires are, and the remaining Quagmire triplets are heirs to a sapphire fortune.

The thought that her Apu spent time working on making this toy for her, because she was sad about losing the First Quigley makes her feel like she could burst open, like a little piece of pacorn popping into a fluffy, delicious piece of pacorn when placed in the microwave for a while. She didn't see him working on it either, which means he must have stayed up past bedtime in order to make this for her, likely several days in a row. She flings her arms around his neck and squeezes him tight in a hug.

Sagramore squeezes her back, wrapping his arms around her little body and hugging her tight, his own heart swollen and tender with love. Second Quigley isn't as handsome as he could be, and some of his stitching is a bit sloppy, and Sagramore hadn't been certain she would like him as much as First Quigley, so he's relieved by her pleasure.

"Thanks Apu," she says, giving him a biiiiiiig kiss on the cheek. "Love thee!" She then turns to settle in his lap and gives Second Quigley a big, tight hug before she starts playing with it in earnest, bouncing it along and making the "Ar ar!" noises she knows that dogs-who-aren't-good-girl-Szari make.

Oh, he's enormously delighted that she decided to sit in his lap to play. He looks up towards the house and Laertes, who's tidying up some of the balloons, grinning stupidly (Laertes knew how hard he was working on Second Quigley). It doesn't seem possible that any birthday could ever top this.

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.

Oh, Haddington yeah! Skateboard!

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.

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.

"I'm so glad," Magnus grins. "How does it feel to be two?"

"I'm big girl!" she declares, stretching her arms above her head. "Full grown woman!"

"Oh, so you're going to start paying taxes?" he teases.

"No government," she points out.

"So many taxes," Magnus counters, grinning at her. "Like the please and thank you tax, and the hug and kiss tax, and the I love you tax."

"Oh," she says, then laughs. "Been paying."

"Then I guess you are all grown up," he says, tweaking her nose.

"Aah! Don't get my nose!" she says, still laughing.

"Sorry, I stole it," he says, showing her his thumb tucked between his index and middle fingers.

"Noooo!" she yells, and also laughs. Lells. Yaughs?

"It's my nose now! What if I... eat it?" Magnus moves his thumb closer to his mouth.

"Noooooooooooo! Don't wanna smell your tummy!" She lurches forward to catch "her nose" before Magnu can "swallow it".

Magnus lets her capture his thumb and draw it to her face. "But my tummy has the rumblies only noses can satisfy!" he says.

"Sound like a you problem," she says, giggling.

"Give... me... your... nose!" Magnus says, tickling her and leaning over to pretend to bite it.

She squeals and rolls over for a quick escape, then stands up with her arms raised over her head, before tackling her big brother and tickling him right back.

Magnus shrieks, an exaggerated sort of yelp. "Oh no... she's got me... help!"

Sunny keeps tickling him, occasionally yelling out a "Raaaa!" or some other related phrase, until she eventually devolves into nothing but giggles, and flops down across Magnu's belly.

Magnus drapes his arms over her in a big hug. "Love you, birthday girl," he tells her, leaning up just enough that he can smack a kiss to the top of her head. "Hey, I have something exciting to tell you."

Sunny thinks that today has been one of the most exciting days she's ever had, and wonders what else Magnu could possibly be about to tell her that would add to the excitement she has already been excited about. "What is it, Magnu?" she asks, moving so she can sit next to him.

Magnus hauls himself into a sit, too, the bouncy house undulating around them. He leans in close and whispers, "I'm getting adopted, too."

Her eyes go wide and she gasps. "Dadguang-jun?!"

Magnus grins and shakes his head. "Dadgramore," he says. "And Waetee. I'm gonna be your double-brother."

Sunny gasps again, only louder this time. "Same parents?!"

"Same parents," Magnus says, grinning so, so big.

Sunny doesn't know how to process this information any other way than squealing and then tackling Magnu in a hug!!!

Magnus sweeps her up, giving her a huge big happy squeeze.

"You share my room?" she asks once she has calmed down enough to speak again.

"No, Sunny, I won't," Magnus says. "I'm going to be staying with Alex at camp. But we're both going to be coming over a lot more."

"Oh!" Hmm. Well. Hmmmmmm. Magnu is a grown up, after all, and she's pretty sure that a lot of the time grown ups don't live with their parents. "Coming to dinner?"

"Yeah. Regularly."

"Oh good!" She is right back to grinning. "I cook for you!"

"You can teach me how!"

"Okay!" And she gives him another excited hug. "Magnu!!!! Excited! Good daddies, not bad at all, make bathtime and bedtime but it okay, have dinner, sometimes poems, clean clothes, get juice," she says all of this very quickly, in her excitement jumping from one thought to the next with very little regard for whether or not she got all of the words she meant to say out properly.

What she means is something along the lines of, "Magnu! I am very excited for you! They are such good daddies, they're not bad at all! Well, they will make you have a bathtime every night, and you'll have a bedtime, but it's okay. They also make sure there's yummy dinner, and sometimes cuddle and read poems. They'll wash your clothes for you and get you juice when you need it, and all that makes up for the bathtime and bedtimes."

Magnus is pretty good at the whole personal hygiene thing, being a 25-year-old 16-year-old who went eleven years between living-and-present parental figures, but Sunny's enthusiasm is infectious, and he's still so delighted to be Officially Family^TM with these guys. "Maybe I'll come by for bedtime poems all the time, too," he says thoughtfully. He bets Sunny would be into some Skaldic poetry. It's the right kind of bloodthirsty for her.

"Yeah! Can sit and snuggle!" Sunny wonders if they'll need to get a really really big chair for the house now, so that they can all four sit and snuggle together. Hmm. Maybe that's how sofas were invented.

"Whatever you want, little sister!" Magnus smacks another kiss to the top of her head. "Hey, think you're ready for more presents now?"

Sunny looks out through the mesh walls of the bouncy house towards the tables where people have placed her gifts. It's a lot of gifts, but not so many that she thinks ~~her dads~~ their dads will need to build another room on to the house, or anything. "Okay!"

"Let's go find Galahad," Magnus says, crawling to the edge of the bounce house. "We got your presents together."

Galahad, who does not care for Sagramore, is hanging around the outskirts of the party, studying the vegetable garden Laertes and Lancelot planted and looking for interesting bugs that might be choosing to visit. Sunny's bigger gift is on the present table, but the other two, which are smaller, are inside his messenger bag. They are very neatly wrapped.

Sunny rolls out of the bounce house and then runs directly over to where she sees Galahad. "Galad!" she says, giving him a big leg hug. "Magnu got adopded! Also Magnu said present time."

"Present time," Magnus echoes, inviting himself into the hug, too, slinging an arm around Galahad's shoulders and resting his other on Sunny's head.

Galahad hugs them both back, Magnus properly with one arm, and Sunny by leaning his leg into her embrace. "Which present would you like first? There are three."

She thinks about this, then holds up two fingers. "Present two!" She thinks she should open the second present, whatever one that is, first. Because she's two today!

"Did we number them?" Magnus stage-whispers to Galahad. "Which one is number two?"

For a moment, Galahad is about to answer seriously (they did not, of course, number the gifts), but he catches Magnus' eye and says slowly, "Sunny, we may not remember which one is two. You may have to help us."

“Big middle small. One two three!” This should clear things up.

Magnus had been genuinely asking Galahad if there was a system, so this turn toward soliciting Sunny's wisdom is a delightful one. "You're getting so good at counting," he compliments her. "That sounds right, doesn't it, Galahad? Two is the middle present?"

"The middle present. I believe so." He opens his messenger bag and takes out the larger of the two packages, which is soft and squishy.

Sunny holds it for a moment, squishing it through the paper and listening to the crinkly noises. Then she very carefully opens it, setting the ripped paper in a neat little pile next to her. What she discovers is a blanket with green and blue stripes! As she looks at it more though, she realizes that it isn't just a blanket, it's more like a bag made out of blanket, and perfectly Sunny sized. She immediately tosses it over her head and giggles, running around in a circle until her feet trip over the bottom edge and she falls. She is still giggling.

Magnus laughs and goes over to help her up. "You're our little pupa," he tells her. "Our little snug bug in a cocoon... rug."

"You can sleep in it and awaken in the adult stage of your life cycle."

Sunny bends her knees so she bobbles up and down repeatedly inside the cocoon. "AaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaah," she says softly while bobbling. She does sound a bit like a motion activated Halloween decoration.

"What kind of bug are you going to be when you come out?" Magnus asks, and then slants a look -- and associated grin -- at Galahad. "I mean, what kind of insect?"

This is not a joke, it's just linguistic accuracy! Galahad looks blankly back at him. He may be playing up the blankness just a little.

"Wasp! Watch out!" She wiggles her knitted-cocoon-covered butt.

Magnus cackles, pulling Galahad in for a side hug. "Are you gonna sting everyone?" he asks Sunny.

"You must choose your wasp carefully. There are social wasps and solitary wasps."

She pauses to think, which should be obvious to both Magnu and Galahad, because she stops wiggling. Finally she says, "Social. Want friends."

"Are you going to be the wasp queen, little bug?" Magnus glances over at Galahad over her head and mouths, Wasps have queens too, right?

Galahad nods to Magnus. "Vespula germanica is a medium-bodied, social wasp of Europe with great flexibility at foraging and hunting for food," he intones, solemn as ever. "They have tolerable cognitive plasticity and are able to update their mental maps rapidly if a food source is removed."

“I vepsla queen!” she announces, then goes over to poke her butt against Magnu’s leg. This is obviously how you sting someone.

"You stung me!" Magnus cries, pulling his leg up so he can wrap around where she bumped it, hopping on one foot in a way he hopes makes her laugh. "You got me!"

"Magnus, you are done for."

Sunny backs up against Galahad's leg now, being very careful because it's a little hard to see through the cocoon blanket, which she is definitely still wearing. "Zzz!"

"Looks like you're toast too, buddy," Magnus says, slinging his arm back around Galahad. "It's been nice knowing ya."

"You have been a good and true friend," Galahad says. He reaches up to cup Magnus' face with one hand, as if he were preparing to say his goodbyes tenderly.

Sunny throws the blanket off of herself with a laugh, her little cheeks red from how warm it was inside the cocoon, and the little ribbon holding her ponytail in place dangerously close to falling out completely. "It okay, just Sunny!"

"You hear that?" Magnus asks Galahad, clutching a hand dramatically to his chest. "We have a new lease on life now!"

"We're going to live?"

"Survivors!"

"That's good," says Magnus. "I would hate to have died from wasp queen stings before you got to open your other presents."

"That's true. There are two more." He reaches into his messenger bag for the second gift.

She gasps. "I forgot!" She got so distracted by how great the first present was!

"You're getting spoiled today, huh?" with a fond ruffle of her hair.

"It's not spoiling. Birthdays are for exchanging gifts." Galahad hands this one down to her.

It's an illuminated bestiary, almost identical to the one he loved from the nunnery, except that this one also includes animals that might only be familiar to some people at the mansion -- there are creatures from the worlds of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, Tress and Asmodean, Aleksander and Nina. It was his favorite book when he was a child, so it seemed right for Sunny.

Sunny feels a sharp pang of worry, afraid she might get spoiled and turn into someone completely insufferable, a phrase which here means “Carmelita Spats”, but then Galahad reassures her that this is normal and she isn’t going to become the most spoiled person anyone has ever met, so she feels better.

The book is beautiful. It feels like something that would be very special and rare, and as such she is incredibly careful with it as she plops down on the grass and starts flipping through the pages, looking at all of the animals. When she sees ones she knows, she gets very excited and shouts the name. She does this for a while before she sets it aside and gives both of them big, big hugs. “Thank youuuuuuu!!!”

"That one was all Galahad," Magnus says, but he kneels down to give her a huge hug back anyway. "It's so cool, right?"

"It was my favorite book when I was a child," he explains. "When I was alone I read it over and over."

“Can’t read,” she says. She’s also not supposed to be alone anymore. “You read me sometime?”

Magnus obviously will read to Sunny whenever she wants, but Sunny is asking Galahad, so he sits back and waits.

Galahad casts a surprised, almost shy look at Magnus. He's awkward enough with other adults, and feels even more uncertain with children. But Magnus is watching him with seeming confidence.

"Yes," he says.

"Yay!" she says, excitedly jumping up and down, then hugs Galahad's legs again. "Thank you Galad!"

"Galahad is really good at stories," Magnus says, because he is. He's grinning, too -- he likes when his favorite people get along.

He feels, frankly, a little shy about her excitement, too -- he's not confident it's earned. But once again Magnus seems so certain, and Sunny is so delighted, that he flashes a little smile down at her. "You're welcome."

She picks the book back up and starts looking around for a safe place to put it for now.

"Why don't you put it with the other books?" asks Magnus, who can tell what her objective is. "And then we can give you your last present."

"Is the last present three or one?" he asks her, as if he'd wholly forgotten.

“One!” She thinks, anyway. She walks over to the books table and stands on her tippy toes to place the animals book on top. It’s hanging half off the edge of the table, but she thinks it’s probably safe there.

Magnus, following it close behind, nudges it a little more solidly onto the table, and then kneels down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "There's present number... one," he says, pointing to the large package.

Edited 2024-11-23 22:34 (UTC)

This one is, of course, the biggest and bulkiest of the presents, and Galahad keeps an eye on Magnus in case he signals that they should help with getting it down to Sunny height or something like that. Magnus is much easier to read than Sunny is.

It's on the table, so Sunny definitely can't reach it right now. "Up?" she asks Magnu, thinking she can just sit on the table to open it.

Edited 2024-11-25 02:17 (UTC)

"You got it, bug," Magnus says, kneeling down so that she can clamber up his body onto the table. "Galahad, hold the table steady?"

He can definitely do that, and he does.

She unwraps it and then grins. "For horse baby!"

"For Dro," Magnus corrects, getting back to his feet.

"She promised to be careful. And she tried it on already."

Her eyes get wide as she realizes what this means. "Ride Dro?!"

"Yeah, Sunny," says Magnus, breaking out into a big grin. He directs it at Galahad, like, we did good, buddy! "You'll get to ride Dro. We have fatherly approval and everything."

"You can fly."

Edited 2024-11-26 13:11 (UTC)

Her eyes get really wide. "Won't fall?"

"We'll practice on the ground first," Magnus promises her. "So that you get practice holding on and Dro gets practice carrying you. And the saddle has a strap for when you're in the air, see? Your-- um, the... um, our... anyway, Waetee and Sagramore will give us a thumbs up before you go airborne."

"And if you want to get down, Magnus will leap up and get you," Galahad adds.

"Oh, seatbelt," she says, nodding at the strap. Seatbelts are important! And if Far and Apu said it would be okay then it has to be pretty safe, right? "You both ride too?" she asks, wondering if they can take turns maybe.

"Maybe we can when she's full grown?" Magnus guesses, glancing at Galahad. "When she's not just Sunny-sized."

"Temeraire also allows it."

Sunny stares in shock. "Temrare don't let Sunny fly!" Is he flying everyone else around?!

"I've only flown on Jack and Alex and Hanguang-jun's sword," Magnus assures Sunny. "And my valkyrie, I guess, but that's different. That was before I got here."

"Perhaps it's because I read to him. You can read your books to him and see what happens," Galahad says, in the very grave tone he uses when he's making a joke.

She's starting to look increasingly frustrated. "Can't read yet!" Maybe if she takes one of the books she has near-memorized and just pretends she's reading he won't mind!

Magnus leans in next to her. "He's kidding," he tells Sunny, at his regular volume, with a fond smile at Galahad. "He's really deadpan when he's telling jokes. You can tell because he sounds extra serious, and because he gets this innocent look in his eye," which is as clear as day to Magnus (Hearthstone, Galahad, and Hanguang-jun expert), but might not be as visible to anyone else, "and also leans back a teeeeeeeenny tiny amount. See?" and he nods at Galahad's posture. "And since he's teasing, I bet you could ask him to help you read your stories to Temeraire. Right, Galahad?"

Galahad nods, relieved that Magnus has translated him.

"I try but only know," she holds up a completely arbitrary number of fingers "some letters. Galad help Sunny read for Temrare?"

"Maybe Galahad could read the stories and Sunny could act them out?" Magnus suggests.

"I can do that. Are you good at acting?" he asks Sunny.

She shrugs. "Mama actor," she says thoughtfully, vaguely remembering a time when her mother was practicing singing a song from an opera she was in. Sunny can't really remember how the song went, or what her mother looked like as she sang, but trying to remember this is much happier than thinking about most of the other actors she has met.

"Had different jobs," she says, as an explanation for why she's not sure if she, personally, would be a good actor. It has never been a profession of hers.

"I bet you'd be really good at acting out stories," Magnus tells her. "Especially from a bestiality. You're so good at animal noises! Actually..." He glances between Galahad and Sunny. "I bet you guys could have an animal noise competition." Yes, he is thinking about kid Galahad's ribbits.

Galahad is not thinking of that, and he tilts his head slightly at Magnus, bewildered.

"Oh yeah! Noise game!" She thinks this sounds exciting. "Oh, just me and Galad. Alex not allowed. Alex professional." Sunny figures it's probably a good idea to set some rules down before they start, in case it grows and more people want to join in. It wouldn't be fair for a professional of Alex's caliber to be competing against amateurs like herself and Galahad.

"Very reasonable," Magnus says solemnly, hiding a grin. "Galahad, can you still pull off a perfect frog?"

Oh. "Sunny may be better now," he answers with equal solemnity, but he sinks down to the ground -- he needs to be in frog position to inhabit a frog mindset.

Sunny climbs down off the table, dropping the last few inches onto her butt. This is fine though, as she turns around and proceeds to sit cross-legged to watch whatever Galahad is about to do.

Magnus watches!

He thinks about all the frogs he's seen -- low, springy, green skin glistening. He tries to hold the frog essence inside himself, cradled in his chest like a ball of glowing light. He crouches on his haunches, his hands flat on the ground, and then from deep in his throat he makes a low croak.

Sunny gasps. It's perfect???????? "Galad frog! So good!" She claps, because that is the polite thing to do after someone delivers such a wonderful performance. She thinks maybe it should be nominated for perhaps a Daytime Emmy.

"Right???" Magnus says, extraordinarily fond. "He tried to teach me how to do it a few weeks ago, but I'm not nearly as good... Your turn, Sunny."

Shyly Galahad smiles. He hadn't expected the applause or the enthusiasm from Sunny (from Magnus, yes) and it makes him feel warm inside, the way he always feels when he's praised for something he had to work at and think about.

"Yes, your turn," he echoes.

"Oh okay!" She gets into position like Galahad did, then says in a very very low and very very quiet and very very slow voice, "rrrrrrrrribbit."

Magnus is no longer an einherji; he's a being of love and light and joy, actively transcending beyond this plane of existence. He's definitely clutching his hands to his heart. "You're both so good," he says, eyes shining. "Gods, you're both so good. Two of my three favorite frogs." Alex, obviously -- his beautiful poison dart frog -- is the third.

Frog moment, Galahad signs to Sunny. It's an important part of their culture and she needs to know about it.

What mean? she asks.

"It's a meme," Magnus tells her. "Based on the time he drew Alex in frog form for me." This is a very bad explanation, and he does realize it, but it's, like... an intro-level explanation.

"You can say it whenever there is a misunderstanding about something that should have been obvious. Or if you are trying to tell a joke, but the other person takes you seriously. Or just to say hello to me or to Magnus or to Shen Yuan."

"I misunderstood lots," she says, because she is misunderstood a lot of the time about things that should be obvious, at least as far as she's concerned. "Lots of frogs."

"I bet people would also listen to you more if you started ribbiting to get their attention," Magnus says, peaceably aware that he's likely giving Sunny more ammunition than any non-Sunny baby ought to have.

"Then you can say frog moment," he says, signing it instead of saying it, "and we will know what is happening."

She repeats frog moment to practice.

Magnus ruffles her hair, so desperately fond, and slings an arm around Galahad's shoulders, giving him a squeeze... also desperately fond.

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.

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.

"Two's a lot," Crowley tells her, meaning it. Two is a lot. In fact, two babies in a baby swap is one too many baby to keep track of. Three is simply untenable. He nods over at the books table. "Happy birthday, kid. I gave you some scary stories to read. Hopefully they don't keep you up at night."

"I'm very brave!" she says, certain that no matter what the scary stories in the books are like, she will be fine. After all, how could any of them possibly be worse than the scary stories she lived through? She saw a woman get cut in half on a sawmill blade, you know. "Thank you, Crowley!" She gives him another hug for good measure.

"You're welcome," he tells her. She's still hugging his legs and he's fairly tall, so he awkwardly leans down and pats her shoulder with the free hand. With his other, he offers the wrapped present to her. "This is for you, by the way."

When she unwraps it, it's clearly a horn that fits on the handlebars of her tricycle¹. It's a very loud and very irritating horn. No, seriously. We mean it. When she squeezes it, it is absolutely tailor-made to irritate the Haddington out of people -- except the horn is pointed outwards, so it doesn't hurt her ears at all. She might yet not be able to clearly yell "Get the bloody hell off the road!!!" while zooming around the mansion grounds, but this will suffice until she learns how to.

¹Which is probably growing bigger with her, if we're going to be honest.

Edited (present!!) 2024-11-04 03:20 (UTC)

Sunny gasps, very excited to have what is clearly a horn that fits on the handlebars of her tricycle, which may or may not be growing bigger with her, it's a little hard to tell because she hasn't measured it with a ruler or any other sort of measurement device. "Oh thanks Crowley!" she says, and excitedly holds it up, pointing directly at Crowley so that he can get a good view of her with it, and squeezes to make it honk, which sounds, to her, like a totally normal horn-honk, and not at all like a Haddington-honk.

Crowley grimaces, just for a second -- for someone's sake, that's a loud honk; but he's heard much worse -- and then gives a nod of approval. "They'll definitely hear you coming with that. Don't want you to accidentally run anyone over and end up in a lawsuit." Because that's definitely what would happen with Sunny at the mansion.

"Paperwork," she says running a hand down her face. What she means is, "That sounds like way too much red tape to deal with!"

"Exactly. Lancelot wouldn't even know what to do with it if you ran him over¹, so perhaps it's best not to. This horn is going to save you a lot of trouble in the long run."

¹He doesn't even know what paperwork is! Maybe that's why Susan divorced him.

"Ellewoods?" Sunny asks thoughtfully. What she means by this is, "Do you think the mansion spirits would bring a lawyer here if someone was trying to sue me for manslaughter?"

If Lancelot was dead, Crowley isn't sure who the plaintiff suing Sunny for manslaughter would be -- and he also isn't certain if there are any laws regarding manslaughter here in the mansion. Kind of like international waters. It's all a moot point anyway, since Sunny has enough dads and uncles and besties who are demons and gods to help her get away with manslaughter if it did ever happen. Crowley doesn't say all of that.

"Look, I've been a lawyer before," he tells Sunny instead. "Got a lot of practice at it down in... Haddington. I don't think there's anything to worry about."

"Oh good," she says. "Thanks Crowley." She would hate to get thrown in jail for accidentally killing someone. Her daddies would probably have to build the jail for her to be sentenced to, and they're busy enough as it is.

"Yeah, no problem." Crowley nods at the books that he's just gifted. "Need any help reading your new books?"

She nods. "Can't read yet. You read me one now?" she asks. If he's busy she'll understand though.

"Sure." Crowley picks up one of the books and flips through it. "What do you think? Here's one called Hook¹... The Wendigo²... The Bride³... The Green Ribbon? Sounds festive."

¹He's not sure if Sunny's into fishing, though.
²Sounds familiar, but he's not sure where he's heard about it before.
³Another wedding. Probably boring; Sunny seemed like she needed a little pick-me-up at the last one.

"Ribbon like Violet!" she says, clearly very excited to read that one. Crowley, of course, knows all about Violet by now, and how she often pulls her hair out of her face with a ribbon, so he'll understand her excitement. "Need rockingchair," she points out, because she wants to sit in Crowley's lap while he reads her the story.

"Exactly." Maybe it'll be an atmospheric tale of a young girl exploring a haunted house. Something chill and spooky. Crowley's a big spooky fan, after all. He looks around for a rocking chair but there's nothing nearby so he summons one with a snap. It arrives with some comfortable, adorable mini devil horn and pitchfork patterned cushions that Crowley absolutely did not mean to miracle up. And a soft, comfy blanket. He frowns.

"Oh thanks, a blanket!" It's roughly hot as Haddington outside, but Sunny thinks having a blanket while they read together will be nice anyway. She waits for Crowley to sit down then climbs up in his lap.

Not what he was really thinking but Crowley shrugs and rolls with it. After Sunny settles into his lap, he flips the book to the appropriate page and starts to read the story. "Let's see... Once there was a girl named Jenny who always wore a green ribbon around her neck. One day Alfred asked her why she wore it. 'I cannot tell you,' said Jenny."

Crowley frowns. "You know, Alfred really needs to mind his own business. Jenny needs to tell him to go to... er, go to Haddington."

"Fashion choice," Sunny says, meaning something along the lines of, "He shouldn't care so much about what she chooses to wear, its her choice what she puts on!"

"Exactly. -- But Alfred kept asking, 'Why do you wear it?' and Jenny would say, 'It is not important.' Jenny and Alfred grew up and fell in love." Crowley scoffs. "Jenny, I don't think you're making the best choice there."

"Comphet," Sunny says, by which she means, "This definitely seems like something she may have been pressured into. I hope they get a divorce."

"One day, Alfred and Jenny got married. After their wedding, Alfred said, 'Now that we're married, you must tell me about the green ribbon.' 'You still must wait,' said Jenny. 'I will tell you when the right time comes.'," Crowley reads.

"When we're divorced," he adds in his Jenny voice -- because of course he's reading this with voices. How else would he be doing it?

"Yaaaay!" Sunny cheers because Jenny is divorcing the annoying guy. "Called it!"

"Er. No, that was just my commentary. Sorry. But I'm sure happier times are right around the corner," Crowley tells her. He's gotten so invested in Alfred and Jenny's horrible romance that he's forgotten they're reading a book of scary stories -- though scary stories don't always have to be unhappy stories¹. "Years passed. Alfred and Jenny grew old. One day, Jenny became very sick. The doctor told her she was dying."

¹This one is, though.

She gasps, and covers her mouth. "Oh no!" Jenny wasted her life with that jerk! No wonder this is a scary story.

"Jenny called Alfred to her side. 'Alfred,' she said, 'now I can tell you about the green ribbon. Untie it, and you will see why I could not tell you before.'" Crowley sneaks a peek and there's only one page left. Surely, this story ends with the untying of the ribbon releasing the demon trapped inside of Jenny so that she can devour Alfred's soul and live out the rest of her existence as a free-spirited, independent ~~woman~~ demon? Surely.

"Not just fashion?" Sunny asks. She thought it was just for fashion this whole time! There's an actual reason?!

"Could be fashion," Crowley says, tone doubtful. "Slowly and carefully, Alfred untied the ribbon, and Jenny’s head fell off!"

That's it? That's the end? Jenny suffers through Alfred and this is all she gets?

When he turns the page to the last picture, Sunny shrieks, then starts laughing wildly. “Looks like — Dr Orwell!” she gets out through her laughter, referring to, as Crowley will undoubtedly know, the optometrist Sunny watched get sawed in half several months ago.

Crowley looks amused that Sunny is so amused by what he thinks is a disappointing end to the story, but he -- surprisingly -- makes a couple of quick connections. "Oh, the one you had to fight off? Didn't she have a sword?"

"Uh huh! I fight. She fell on saw. Cut in half." Sunny draws a line across her chest while making a very illustrative sound.

"At least you didn't have to deal with Alfred," Crowley offers. Ugh. He's the worst.

"Alfred head fall instead. Better end," she says, meaning something along the lines of, "Alfred's head should have fallen off instead. It would've been a better ending."

"You know what, I absolutely agree. Alfred's head falls off, Jenny gets the life insurance payout and lives happily ever after without anyone commenting on her fashion choices."

"Move to island, wear ribbon on beach," Sunny suggests.

"Precisely." This is why Sunny is a strong, independent woman. She's got such a logical head on her shoulders.

As opposed to Jenny, who has a head on the floor.

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.

Edited (look, tags are hard ;__;) 2024-11-03 23:31 (UTC)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sunny giggles when Magnu picks her up. A lot of today has felt like a blur, going around from person to person, eating all the yummy snacks her family prepared, but it has been a good blur.

"Nother present?" she asks, looking between Magnu and Aire.

"But of course! It's another present from the both of us."

"Grantaire did most of the work," Magnus says, loyally. "I just told him what it should, um. Look like."

She is very curious about what this present might be. "Can I open?!"

"Open away! But I will point out that regardless of who did what work, it was Magnus's idea to begin with."

"Helper Aire," Magnus says, pointedly, and kneels down so that Sunny can climb down and approach her gift.

Finding a gift for someone can often be very difficult. You need to make sure the gift is something the recipient does not already own, is something they will enjoy, is the right size if it is clothing, is not something they are allergic to if it is a snack, is not a comb for your wife's hair that she has secretly sold to buy a watch chain, is not a watch chain for your husband's watch that he secretly sold to buy a comb, and is not something so overly large there's nowhere to store it inside the house. There are times when someone might ask for something very specific as a birthday gift, but there are other times when the perfect gift is something they would never have thought to ask for at all.

When Sunny carefully unwraps her gift from Magnu and Aire, she realizes this gift fits into that second category. Her breath catches, because she finds herself staring face to face with Violet and Klaus. The paintings aren't exact, there's something just a little bit off that Sunny can't quite put her finger on, but considering Aire has never met them she feels like this is as perfect as can be.

It has been months since she's seen them. She isn't very skilled at fractions yet, but she feels like it's been around a fourth of her life without them. She has been worried she would start to forget what they looked like, because she knows that happened with her first set of parents. But here they are, smiling, in pictures almost as big as she is. Violet with her hair pulled back out of her face with her ribbon, probably about to invent something. Klaus with his glasses on, ready to read a book or quote something he read in a book once, or maybe even both at the same time. She misses them so much. She wants them to be here, to meet her new parents, to meet her new brother, to meet all of her friends, but most importantly to be finally safe in this wonderful place full of grown ups who listen when something is wrong, who believe what you have to say, and who are not trying to steal anyone's fortune, because there's not even money here in the first place.

She stares at the paintings for what feels like an inordinately long amount of time but in actuality is only less than a full minute, and then she can't help it anymore. She starts to cry. Sunny wants to tell Magnu thank you for thinking of such a lovely gift, and she wants to tell Aire thank you for going through the effort of painting them for her, but she can't. All she can do right now is cry.

The reaction from Sunny is heartwrenching, but not in the way that indicates he got the paintings wrong and he should give up art forever as a failure, but in the way that clearly means he got them at least close enough to right. He promptly stoops down and wraps his arms around her in a wordless hug.

Magnus scoops them both up in a hug of his own. "We love you," he tells Sunny.

"Lo -- you -- t--" she says, a phrase which here means, "I love you both too," but unfortunately she is crying too much to get the words out fully.

Grantaire squeezes them both, since the hug's there, might as well indulge in it. "Happy birthday, Sunny."

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.)

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.

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?

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!

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.

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!"

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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