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

[biteybaby]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comments

[kadewest]

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

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

[vineleaves]

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

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

[recognizance]

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

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

Then it makes good its escape.

[sagramore]

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

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

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

[biteybaby]

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

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

"Nother gift?" she asks, excited.

[sagramore]

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

[biteybaby]

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]

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.

[biteybaby]

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.

[sagramore]

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."

[biteybaby]

"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]

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.

[bymyheelies]

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

[summerdude]

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

"Good birthday so far?" he asks.

[biteybaby]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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

[sagramore]

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.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"No government," she points out.

[summerdude]

"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."

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[aflashbastard]

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

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