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

[biteybaby]

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!"

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

"We're going to live?"

[biteybaby]

"Survivors!"

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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!!!”

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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."

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

“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.

[summerdude]

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.

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

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.