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?"

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[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.

[aflashbastard]

"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."

[biteybaby]

"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.

[aflashbastard]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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.

[aflashbastard]

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.

[biteybaby]

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

[aflashbastard]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"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?"

[aflashbastard]

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."

[biteybaby]

"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.

[aflashbastard]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[aflashbastard]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"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.

[aflashbastard]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"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.

[aflashbastard]

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."

[biteybaby]

"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!"

[aflashbastard]

"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."

[biteybaby]

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

[aflashbastard]

"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?

[biteybaby]

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

[aflashbastard]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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