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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[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.

[biteybaby]

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.

[futaille]

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

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[futaille]

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

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

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.

[futaille]

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.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"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.

[futaille]

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