biteybaby | Closed: The World is Quiet Here.

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magnus

Closed: The World is Quiet Here.

Nightmares are nothing new for Sunny Baudelaire. There was a time when she had them somewhat infrequently, before her birth parents tragically perished in a sudden house fire that may or may not have been started by an individual who may or may not have recently died any number of painful deaths, though research into the exact specifics of those events is still ongoing. After previously mentioned arson, Sunny Baudelaire experienced a period of very frequent nightmares, followed by a few months where her nightmares were lessening, a word which here means "became less frequent, though did still happen from time to time".

Unfortunately, she has been having very intense nightmares every time she has fallen asleep in recent days, and in general her waking hours have been less than ideal as well. Recently it seems like everyone but her got to be reunited with their loved ones from home, but all Sunny got was --

She wakes up, multiple times during the night, screaming at the viciously frightening dreams her subconscious has decided to inflict on her. Count Olaf, dead, getting up though and continuing to menace her. Count Olaf kidnapping her and taking her back home, away from her daddies and her brother and everyone else, and keeping her in another birdcage. Count Olaf killing Violet and Klaus in all of the many several ways many several people killed him. Magnu's mommy, who by all accounts was a very lovely person in real life, but in Sunny's dreams she's mean and horrible and laughs at her because her mommy didn't get to come here, even though they're both equally dead and therefore equally as likely to show up.

Sunny is very glad that every time she wakes up crying her daddies are there to hug her and calm her down enough to go back to sleep. She is also very glad that she is still wearing her bedtime pull ups every night. Most of all though, she is glad that Count Olaf is definitely incredibly dead, and even though she can't be with Violet and Klaus, she knows they won't be harmed by him any more. She just wishes the nightmares about the whole situation would stop.

This morning she wakes up screaming from a nightmare at almost the same time she gets up normally, and so she decides to just stay awake. She has big plans to go get groceries with Magnu anyway, and after a bit of a touch and go start to her day, she's finally dressed and out the door with Magnu.

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"Okay, bug," Magnus says. It's clear Sunny's had a hard night -- her cheeks are pink with emotion, and even though their dads helped her wash her face, she's definitely got that just-cried look. Magnus's job here is to help her cope in any way possible. "Wanna ride on my shoulders or walk?"

"I walk," she says, even though she's very tired from how little she slept the night before.

Magnus nods very seriously. "Will you hold my hand?" he asks.

"Uh huh," she says and reaches up to hold Magnu's hand as they walk.

Magnus lets Sunny set the pace. "Okay," he says. "What kind of groceries do you think we should get today?"

She shrugs. "Lots." Violet would probably be able to invent a machine that could look in the cabinets and then write down a grocery list for you if she were here, and then they wouldn't need to remember what to get. Violet doesn't get to come here though.

Magnus looks down at her little head and squeezes her little hand. "Another bad night, huh?"

Sunny nods. "Can't stay sleeping," she explains.

"Bad dreams? Or does--" how can he describe the feeling of anxiety? "--your chest or tummy hurt?"

"Bad dreams," she answers almost immediately, then upon further reflection, adds, "Tummy hurt too."

Magnus nods seriously. "Splandoo," he agrees. "Are there things that you do sometimes that make your tummy stop hurting?"

She shakes her head. "Maybe I go see doctor?" Aire might know something to do about it.

"When I was your age," says Magnus, "and my tummy hurt at night like that, my mom would take me outside to look at the sky, and it really helped. Maybe Dad can help you see if that works for you, too?"

Sunny abruptly stops walking and looks up, squinting a little, then looks back at Magnu. "Probaly better in night." She needs sunglasses to do that in the daytime.

"Yeah, the sun is way bright right now, huh?" Magnus says, grinning down at her. "Hard to look at without hurting your eyes."

"Uh huh." This does bring up a good question. "Magnu, sun hurt you eyes too or no cause magic?"

That is a great question! "Sunlight can hurt my eyes," Magnus tells her. "They just get better really fast when I look away."

That makes sense. "That good. You not get hurt."

"I'm a resilient guy," Magnus agrees. He squeezes her hand. "And you're a resilient girl. I know the bad dreams really suck right now, but they'll start to get better. Slowly. Over time."

"Don't like them," she says quietly, and mostly toward the ground.

Magnus stoops down and stretches out the arm that isn't holding her hand, ready to bundle her in a big old hug. "Are they the scary kind of the sad kind? Or both?"

She is all too eager to wrap herself up in a big Magnu hug. "Both. Olaf kill Violet and Klaus. He can't really though, he perished. Just bad dream." She purposefully does not tell Magnu about the bad dream she had involving his mama.

"Not real, but still really bad, huh," Magnus surmises, giving her a gentle squeeze which, to her tiny toddler-sized-eggplant-sized-toddler body, probably feels like a big bear hug.

Magnu gives the best hugs. Right up there with the best hugs she also gets from Far and Apu. "Make me cry even though not real," she explains.

Magnus strokes her hair. "I cry about dreams that aren't real sometimes, too."

"It not fair," she says, although it is unclear if she means it is unfair that dreams can be scary even when they aren't real, or if it's not fair that she had to go through terrible circumstances a few days ago that has caused her to have scary dreams.

Right, that's it. Magnus sits fully on the ground and pats his lap in case Sunny wants to sit there and chat. "No, bug. It really isn't."

Sunny climbs into his lap and lays her head over on his chest. "Nothing fair, I only get bad things," she says, pouting. This statement isn't, exactly, true. While it is a fact that more terrible things have happened to Sunny Baudelaire in her two years of life than have happened to many fully grown adults, her life isn't only bad things. She has been adopded by two very loving daddies and one very loving big brother. She has so many incredibly overpowered loved ones who believe her and are willing to do whatever they need to in order to keep her safe. But right now all of the bad things seem to greatly eclipse the good things, a phrase which here means, "all of the bad things add up to a much greater amount than the good things, in such a way that it feels like the good things are getting crushed and hidden and suffocated, much like how Sunny's bad dreams make her feel like she has been crushed and is suffocating, and wants to hide".

Everyone else got visitors they were excited to see. People they love, people who are their friends or mommies. Sunny got someone who tried to kidnap her and take her away from her loving daddies and brother. She could have gotten Violet or Klaus. She could have gotten her mommy, or her first daddy. She could have gotten Uncle Monty, or the Incredibly Deadly Viper, or one of the Quagmire triplets, or Justice Strauss, or even Jerome.

It's not fair, and she's frankly entirely too tired to try to pretend otherwise.

"I know, bug." Magnus hugs her close, stroking her hair slowly for a moment or two before switching to rubbing her back. "I know it's really unfair that I got my mom and Dad got his sister and Dad got Dindin." Does Magnus realize that's not his name? It doesn't matter; it's definitely his real name now! "And you got someone really, really scary. I know that getting a letter to Violet and Klaus is good but not nearly the same thing as seeing them again. I wish I could take you into my now-dreams with me."

He doesn't, actually. He's pretty sure that seeing Violet and Klaus -- and knowing they can't see her in return -- would be really, really sad for Sunny.

"If haves magic too I see Violet and Klaus," she says, but she knows she can't have magic like Magnu. She's not a dead-alive person. Magnu is a dead-alive person so he has magic for that. It's another thing that isn't fair.

"I know." Magnus kisses the top of her head, thinking hard. "You wanna do what me and Galahad do when we're smurt? --That means sad, mad, and hurt."

Sunny thinks that sounds like a very useful word. She nods. "I smurt. What you and Galad do?"

"We go get something that we can throw at rocks or a wall and watch it break and we yell what's making us smurt as we throw it. Like ice, or--" what's safe for someone Sunny's age? "water balloons."

She is quiet for a while, considering this. "Sound fun. Water balloon better than ice." Ice might make her hands cold.

"Great." Magnus gives her another little squeeze. "We can sit here as long as you want, okay? And then we can go find some water balloons to mess up."

"I ready to go," she says. She does want to see how much balloons help. Sunny doesn't enjoy feeling awful and having bad dreams.

"Piggy back ride, carry, or walk?"

"...Carry."

"You got it, boss." Magnus rises easily from his cross-legged position, cradling Sunny to his side as he goes. Once he's vertical again, he settles her on his hip, wraps an arm around her like a hug, and kisses the top of her head. Then he makes his way inside and heads straight to the game room -- he remembers there being a drawer of balloons in there somewhere.

Sunny is only halfway paying attention as they travel. Though she isn't as tired as she usually was when she was working as a secretary, she is still very tired. She also feels a little bad for her daddies, because if she's this tired they have to also be just as tired, since waking up screaming from a nightmare has also been waking them up. Since they are so old they probably need more sleep than she does.

Because she is only halfway paying attention, she doesn't realize they're going to the game room until they're already inside it. "Didn't know water balloons here."

Magnus can't help it; he gives her a tight little squeeze. "I'm pretty sure most toys are in here. Wanna help me look through the drawers to find some?"

"Okay, I help," she says flatly, a word which here means, "without sounding very excited about any of it, despite normally jumping at the opportunity to find and destroy water balloons".

"You're a very good helper," Magnus tells her. He kisses the top of her head and then crouches down so that she can climb off his hip. "How about I look at all the ones that are my height and you look at all the ones that are your height?"

"Okay." She climbs off of Magnu and walks over to the nearest Sunny-height drawer. She opens it, stares at the contents for a moment, then closes the drawer.

Magnus watches her for a moment, aching. He wishes there was something, anything he could do -- something specific, something helpful, something that would definitely make her feel better. But he's pretty sure there's nothing -- nothing except time. It sucks.

He starts rummaging through a drawer above the one she looked through, keeping an eye on her.

She moves to the next drawer and does the same. No balloons here, either.

Okay, so the thing is, Magnus is almost positive that the balloons are in the next Sunny-height drawer over. And he's really hoping that she gets a little excited about finding them. So he rummages through another drawer, making grumbling noises when he turns up bupkis.

Sunny is, in many ways, quite an unusual two year old. This is due largely to her being what might lovingly be referred to as a "protagonist", a word which here means, "someone to whom a great many incredibly tragic circumstances have occurred", but can also mean, "a main character in a series of novels in which a great many incredibly tragic circumstances happen to a trio of unlucky orphans". She is often very mature for her age, and thanks largely to magic of varying sources, several residents of this pocket dimension have been able to understand her much more clearly than most people would be able, which does help her greatly when it comes to frustrations about not being understood.

Regardless, it is important to note that she is still, despite all evidence that might point to her being a fully grown businesswoman, just a two year old child. Furthermore, she is a two year old who very recently had an incredibly difficult and trying day, and even though her dear brother Magnu has been able to understand her speech quite clearly for as long as he has known her, she doesn't have enough words to fully articulate all of the myriad of complicated reasons she has been upset the past few days. Many people will refer to a period of time in a toddler's life that is hard to handle as being "the terrible twos", and while this typist feels that might be an unfair label to give to Sunny Baudelaire (mostly because her entire life has been terrible, so it hardly is her fault if she occasionally has a bit of a meltdown), she is starting to tear up at not finding the balloons yet.

They should have been in the first drawer, she thinks. She shouldn't have to be hunting them down. They probably aren't going to be here at all, and Magnu won't be able to show her what he and Galahad do, and she really wants to play with water balloons today, so why aren't they in the drawers she has already opened? Magnu can't find them either! It's just not fair, nothing lately has been fair, it's just like her old life and her old bad luck are back, but this time without Violet and Klaus, even though other people here get to see their family, and sometimes their family even stay, and all she got was Count Olaf!!!!

Sunny lets out a very frustrated scream and flops down on the floor and cries.

Magnus immediately flops down on the floor next to her. "I'm here," he tells her. "Would it help if I asked you to show me just how loud you can scream?"

"No!" she screams.

"Okay. Would it help to squeeze my hand as hard as it hurts?"

"No!" she screams louder, then just screams without saying any words at all.

Magnus nods. Even though she's screaming wordlessly he can still understand her. He rolls over from where he's flopped down, tucking his body next to Sunny's and then curling up, like he's protecting her from anything and anyone. He strokes her hair back with one hand. "Can I scream with you?"

She screams again, kicking her legs at the air as she does so.

Magnus doesn't mind when her legs whack his arm. Her heels are hard, but he doesn't bruise that easily. He gives the worst, quietest, most lukewarm scream known to humankind, and then makes a face. "I don't think I scream very good," he says. "Show me again how it's done?"

"Nuh uh!!!" she screams. She doesn't want to do that! She doesn't want to do much of anything right now, is the problem.

Magnus screams again, a tiny bit better than before. "How was that?" he asks. "Still bad?"

"Stop it!" she hollers and continues thrashing around for another few seconds before she finally lets out one final frustrated yell and stills. She's crying, but much quieter now.

Magnus waits for a long few moments, cuddling her close, wiping her face with the Baby Handkerchief he's been carrying around every day for a while now (he's learned that babies are capable of so much snot and such dirty fingers; the Baby Handkerchief is a fresh, clean one every day). When her tears start softening into hiccups, he says, "Can I tell you a secret?"

She makes a noise that is somewhere between a grumble, a groan, and an 'uh huh'.

"You know how everyone is asking how they can help make you feel better? Me included?"

She nods.

"We're asking because we love you and we're sad that you're so sad, but you're allowed to feel bad for as long as you feel bad and we'll still all love you."

She doesn't know how to respond to that. She doesn't know if she's sad, actually. She feels like she's all of the emotions she knows all at the same time, except maybe most of the good ones, and she doesn't like that. She's also all screamed out at this point, so she just keeps laying there as Magnu talks.

"Or smurt, or whatever it is that you're feeling. It's all okay. It's okay that you felt complicated about meeting my mom. It's okay to feel complicated about Auntie Phelia. It's okay to feel complicated about your first siblings and Olaf and everything."

"Not fair," she says, because nothing lately has felt fair to her.

"No, bug. It's not fair. It's not fair at all." Magnus won't tell her he would have traded his mom's visit for a better day for her, because he's not certain he could have brought himself to do that. Plus he knows that by the time she's six she's fine with it, so... at least that's something?

But she shouldn't have had to see Olaf at all.

"Someone really stupid once told me that life isn't fair," Magnus says instead. "And that the sooner I realized that, the happier I'd be. But I'll tell you what, Sunny. We can find a way to make sure that even when it feels like it's really unfair, there's something we can do to balance it out a little. Okay? Like how when people were being really unfair to me after I lost my mom and my house, I'd make myself feel better by, um. Taking their money and using it to buy myself a really nice lunch or a change of clothes. It didn't bring me what I really wanted, but it made me feel like I had some kind of control over some stuff. You know?"

"Don't want monies," she says quietly, but very emphatically.

"It's not about the money," Magnus says, just as quietly, kissing the top of her head. "It's about finding a way to make things feel a little more fair."

Good because she doesn't want any more monies!!! She has too much! It just makes bad stuff happen!

"So maybe," Magnus suggests, "we start with the water balloons, and if that doesn't work, we try something else."

"Lost," she says, by which she means, "I can't find the balloons though".

"Shall we try one more drawer? I bet third time's the charm."

"Magnu look." Sunny doesn't want to get up off the floor yet.

"Tell me when you're ready, and we can look together, okay? I'll lie down with you as long as you want."

In that case, she snuggles into his chest.

He cuddles her close, stroking her soft, fine hair back with one hand. "I don't keep up with the calendar like Galahad," he says, "and I don't know what time it would actually be back home." Almost certainly too late; he has a birthday coming very soon! "But do you want me to talk to our dads about doing, like, a little Hanukkah celebration this winter?"

She’s quiet for a while, thinking about it. It would be fun, probably. Holidays are fun, right? But - “Don’t amember what to do,” and she’s pretty sure Apu and Far also don’t know what to do.

"That's okay. We can read books about it, right? I bet there's a ton in the library. And then all four of us could talk about what traditions sound best to you." Magnus smooths her hair back again. "I mostly know about Muslim stuff, because of my valkyrie, Sam. And some christian stuff, because of Galahad. And a ton of Norse stuff, obviously. But I'd love to learn Jewish stuff with you, if that's something you'd like."

"Uh huh." She snuggles into Magnu some more. "Like first family."

"Yeah. I think it's nice to honor them. And important." Magnus kisses the top of her head. "I meant what we said in the letter we sent Violet and Klaus. I wanna help make sure you always remember them."

That wouldn't be necessary if they would get kidnapped and brought here, but she's glad Magnu is wanting to help her anyway. "Thanks Magnu."

Magnus gives her another squeeze. "What do you think," he says. "Ready to check one last drawer now?"

"Guess so," she says.

"Okay." Magnus uncurls from around her a little. "Help me up?"

Sunny sighs and hops up, taking Magnu’s hand and yanking it so he can get up. “You old now, can’t up alone?”

Magnus lays, heavy as stone, on her first tug; on her second, he leaps up, lets his hand slip from hers, does a somersault halfway across the room, and lands on one knee with his arms outstretched. "Wow!" he says. "I didn't know you were so strong!"

While normally she might laugh at this, she still isn't in good enough of a mood for that. She does smile though, and says, "You just kidding!"

"Yeah, I am." Magnus, more overcome with relief at that smile than he will ever admit to anyone (except Dad, Dad, Hanguang-jun, Galahad, Uncle D, and Alex, who he plans to tell about it as soon as possible), leaps properly to his feet and swoops over to her. "I'm a very silly guy." He puts his hand on the drawer that he's 99.9% sure has the balloons. "Wanna help me open, Super Strong Girl?"

"Kay," she says and starts helping him open it.

Magnus makes a big show of struggling. "I'm glad you're helping me," he says, his relief doubling as the drawer eases open to reveal balloons. "I don't know if I could manage it on my own! And what's that...? Could it be? A successful quest?"

"No!" she says, ignoring the balloons for the time being. "You not going on questeses any more! Apu said!"

Luckily, Dad has apprised Magnus of the outcome of his conversation with Apollo, and both he and Sunny have separately told Magnus about his conversation with Sunny about the conversation with Apollo. He pulls Sunny into a hug. "I'm not talking about a bad god quest," he assures her. "I'm talking about a Super Special Sibling Quest. Those are the good kind. They're like the quests where me and Galahad explore the basement. Nobody gets hurt and the only objective and the only possible outcome is fun. I promise."

"That not quest that just hang out," she says.

"I like calling hang outs quests," Magnus tells her. "It means I have more good quest experiences, and it makes everything feel exciting. But if you don't like that we can pick a different word."

Oh. Hmm. She does want Magnu to have more good experiences, but at the same time it can be confusing when one word has two very different meanings. Then again, there are a lot of words like that, like 'seal' and 'seal', and 'band' and 'band', and 'ruler' and 'ruler', and 'leaves' and 'leaves', and 'chest' and 'chest', and 'stand' and 'stand', and 'degree' and 'degree', and she hasn't had to change any of those words at all and still managed to get by this far. "It okay you say questeses," she settles on.

Magnus plants a big old kiss on the top of her head next to her ponytail. "Ready to start Part Two of our Water Balloon Quest? It involves filling them alllll up with water so we can throw them."

That does sound like fun. "Okay. Need help though." She has never put water inside a balloon!

"Of course I'll help. I'll show you how to do it, and then you can fill and I can tie, how does that sound?" Magnus takes a double handful of balloons and shoves them in his pockets. "Wanna ride my shoulders to the bathroom? Wait, do you need anything first?"

"Need what?"

"Snacks, potty, something to drink?"

"Oh," she thinks about it. "I stirsty."

"Cool, we can fill up the balloons in the kitchen and get you some... juice? Chocolate milk?"

"Juice please."

So Magnus sweeps Sunny up onto his shoulders and takes her to the kitchen. "Juice first!" he announces, and takes a lot of types of juice -- orange, apple, pineapple, cherry, tomato, mango, passionfruit, pomegranate, and grape -- from the fridge. He retrieves a sippy cup, pours about an ounce of each juice into a little paper dixie cup, and settles Sunny and all the juices and sippy cup onto the counter.

"Here," he says. "You make a magic juice potion. I'm gonna see if the pantry has something to carry all of our water balloons in, okay?"

"Kay," she says, and starts pouring each of the little cups of juice into her much larger cup.

In the pantry, Magnus draws Jack from pendant form. This conversation isn't secret -- he'll definitely tell Sunny the gist of it -- but he doesn't want her to feel weird that he's been paying such close attention to her moods.

"Señor?" Jack says, once he's fully unleashed, runes glowing gently in the dark room. "Another fight?"

"Jack," Magnus says. "No, but I need you to do a favor for me, buddy."

"Does it involve serenading anyone?"

"It can? I need you to fly to Sagramore and Laertes's place. Don't interrupt them if they're, um, you know... involved, but hang around, I need you to give them a message. Tell them... tell them Sunny's taken a turn and she's doing better. Tell them I'm taking her to the big playground room in the basement for a game to hopefully help her stay feeling better, and they're welcome to join us -- one or both of them -- but otherwise, we're going to be maybe half an hour to an hour later than I thought, and we don't want them to worry after... after everything. Okay?"

Jack, who likes Sunny, brightens. Literally: his runes glow more brightly. "You got it, boss," he says, twirling in midair.

"The playground is the one with the big green chalk mark on the door," Magnus says. "I don't know if they've been there before? I drew a swingset on it?"

"Green swingset door. Sunny. Running late. They're invited."

"Good blade," Magnus says, fondly. "Best sword. Sharpest sword." He picks up a big bucket. When he goes back into the kitchen, Jack flies out and zips toward the door. Magnus tells Sunny, "He's letting Dads know we're going to go play instead of coming straight home."

Sunny looks up when Jack flies out and blinks before waving, "Bye Jack." If there were telephones here then they could just call Apu and Far, and Jack could stay and maybe play with them too if he wanted. But then again, swords are probably not very good at holding water balloons.

Magnus comes over. "What juices did you pick?"

"Every." The sippy cup is, it must be said, incredibly full, and there's a little puddle on the counter around it too.

"Whoa! You're going for the pure stuff, huh? Straight up juice, no water." Magnus reaches out. "Want me to help you with the lid?"

"Yes please." She's worried she might spill it if she tries to screw the lid on. What she doesn't realize is that most people would spill this cup while screwing the lid on at this point, because she has filled it up to the absolute top (and then some), and there is currently no room for the lid's valve to go.

"You wanna take a big sip while it's still on the counter for me first?"

"Okay." She shifts to be mostly laying down on her tummy, propped up juuuust enough to lean over and take a big slurp from the cup. "...I drink like Szari."

"You are! Can you give me your best dog sounds?" Magnus asks. The cup is now empty enough that he can screw the lid on, which he does gingerly. Then he immediately whisks it to the sink to rinse off the sticky exterior. He wets a cloth, too, to wipe down the countertop when he returns the cup to Sunny.

“Ar ar,” she says, a little lackluster. “Lackluster” is a phrase which here means “definitely not her best dog sounds, as she still isn’t really feeling up to it at the moment”.

Magnus still gives her an enthusiastic double thumbs up. "Okay, puppy," he says. "Ready to try filling up some balloons?"

Sunny just nods and sticks the sippy cup in her mouth.

"Okay. So I'm gonna need your help with this." Magnus nudges Sunny closer to the sink. "Do you think you can help put the ends of the balloons over the sink faucet?" He demonstrates what that looks like.

She tries with one hand, her other hand holding the sippy cup in place in her mouth. It does not go very well.

"Okay..." Magnus fixes the edge of the balloon. "Let's see if turning the water on slowly and carefully is an easier job for you, okay?" He grips the balloon's neck very, very carefully, holding it tightly against the faucet.

She does a much better job at turning the water on slowly and carefully.

Magnus waits till the balloon is bulging, but not so long that it risks popping on their walk down to the playground, then says, "Okay! Off!"

She very very quickly turns off the water!

Magnus eases the balloon from the tip of the faucet verrrrrry carefully, and then verrrry carefully ties a knot in the end, and then verrrrrry carefully puts it in the bucket, and then holds up his hand for a high five. "Good work, team," he says. "Wanna try to fit the next one on?"

Sunny wants to drink her juice.

"No?" Magnus gives her a smile. "I'd like you to have a job helping if you're okay with that, but you can pick which job to have, okay?"

She takes the sippy cup out of her mouth long enough to say, "Water."

"You got it, boss." Magnus fits another balloon over the sink faucet. "Ready when you are!"

She turns the water on slowly and carefully again.

And like that, working carefully together, they soon have a bucket brimming with water balloons. Magnus hefts it -- it's easily twice as heavy as Sunny. "I think that's enough," he decides, showing her the assortment. "What do you say? Wanna go throw them at things?"

She nods. "Uh huh. Make mess."

"Let's make the biggest mess," says Magnus, who chose the playground room downstairs specifically because he's never seen an animal in there who might get hurt if he misses a scrap of balloon on the clean-up.

"Gonna splash me," she points out. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the good news is either way it won't be hard to find clothes that she can change into, given the simple fact that the mansion is magical and can make anything you want as long as what you want isn't your older sister and brother who might not need to worry about treacherous Counts anymore, but they are still incredibly missed either way.

"Not necessarily," says Magnus thoughtfully, but if Sunny wants to be splashed he'll do everything in his power to make her happy. "But maybe we can grab some towels on the way just in case? I'm gonna carry the bucket because it's very, very heavy, but you can help with the towels if you like."

"No, it fine." She doesn't feel like looking for towels right now, she wants to go throw the balloons.

"Okay, bug. Wanna ride on my shoulders or walk?"

"I ride."

"Hold on tight to your juice," Magnus says, backing up to the kitchen counter and mentally resigning himself to a briefly sticky future despite his clean-up attempts, "and climb on."

She holds on tight to her juice and climbs on.

And Magnus hoists the bucket of balloons up and heads, quickly and carefully, down to the basement and then into the adult playground room. It's outside, technically, but it's in a confined outside, almost like it's housed in a bubble of a room. He's gratified to see that, since the last time he and Alex were down here, it's grown a toddler-sized playground off to the side, too. And there are a lot of surfaces to throw balloons at.

He dumps the bucket on the ground and then kneels so that Sunny can climb off of him. "Okay, sister," he says. "Ready to throw all our feelings around?"

Sunny climbs off and promptly goes to select a balloon from the bucket. "Uh huh."

"The way me and Galahad do it, we shout something we're upset about as we throw the thing we're throwing," Magnus tells her.

"Me see?"

"Yeah, of course. Let me think." He picks up a balloon, hefting it in his hand, and considers his options. He doesn't want to express anger that's visitor-related, because that's the thing Sunny is sensitive about. "I'm mad that... Drosera bit a hole in my favorite shoe last night." He lobs the balloon against the climbing wall at the edge of the playground, where it bursts satisfyingly against a hand-grip.

Sunny picks up a balloon. "I mad having bad dream!" She throws her balloon with both hands, and it lands about a foot in front of her and sort of wobbles, but doesn't break. She picks it up and tries again, this time walking a little closer to the climbing wall before she throws it. It does hit the wall this time, and pops, splashing water all over the ground by Sunny's little light up shoes.

"That was a really good throw," says Magnus, quickly running through some mental arithmetic. Namely: what's the sharpest thing around here that Sunny can throw balloons at so she doesn't have to re-try a toss? "Wanna try our second throws from another place?"

It does help to know that Magnu thinks she did a good job at it, even though she doesn't have experience with this particular balloon-related activity. "Okay. Where?"

"Why don't we climb to the top of the structure and throw them against the ground?" Gravity will help her a lot that way.

"Oh yeah. Drop." That sounds good.

"Do you want help climbing up or do you wanna do it yourself?" It is an adult-sized playground, but from their caving adventures, Magnus knows it's within Sunny's abilities to get up there, if she's feeling energized enough to try right now. Obviously he'll spot her either way.

"I climb." She pauses. "You can carry balloons?" She doesn't think she can climb up and carry any of the water balloons at the same time.

"'Course. I'm Balloon Boy. I'll carry 'em whenever and wherever you want."

"Oh thanks Magnu," she says, and starts climbing up. It's not the easiest thing in the world, but then again, it is definitely not the hardest thing in the world, and it's not even the hardest thing Sunny Baudelaire has ever done, so she reaches the top in no time at all, a phrase which here means, "much less time than it took her to climb the elevator shaft with her teeth".

Magnus is so stinking proud of her he could cry. Her determination... her resilience... He hates, so much, the difficulties she's faced in her young life, and he's so glad that now that Olaf is dead (and dead, and dead, and dead again), odds are she'll have much smoother sailing moving forward. He wonders if Jack is going to successfully rustle up either (or both!) of their dads. That might be nice, having the whole family here to throw water balloons with Sunny. But even if they don't show up, he's here.

There was this moment in Niflheim, back when he was freezing to death, unsure if he'd make it off the frozen sea and onto land, when it hit him just how much he actually, genuinely wanted to stop Ragnarok and save the world. He wanted Sam and Amir to get to be married; he wanted Percy and Annabeth to get to go to college; he wanted Percy's little sister to grow up and thrive. He'd wanted it for Hearthstone and Blitzen. He'd wanted it so Mallory and Halfborn could reconcile their then-current breakup. He'd wanted it so Hunding could eat more chocolate, and so Alex could make more pottery, and so TJ could mentor more new einherjar.

It's not that his own future didn't factor into his decision. He'd also consciously chosen to save the world so that he could learn to love more of the world. But his main focus had definitely been letting alive people have normal lives.

Facing down Count Olaf was kind of like facing down Sunny's Loki, and he's definitely not coming back. And there's (probably) no Ragnarok here. So the stakes are different. But Magnus knows, in this moment, hovering half a foot behind Sunny so he can catch her if he needs to, that he'd do any and everything in his considerable power to ensure Sunny grows up happily and well.

When she gets to the top, he snags the bucket of balloons and bounds up next to her. He sets the bucket to the side and pulls her into a big bear hug. "I'm really glad you're my forever sister," he mumbles into her hair. "I love you a whole lot."

Then he straightens up and hoists a balloon. "This one," he tells her with a wink, "represents Jello." Then he tosses it over the edge and lets it smash against the ground.

"Love you too Magnu," she says, then watches as he drops the balloon to the ground. Yep, Sunny thinks, that's probably what jello would do if you dropped it from up here. Gross. Absolutely gross.

She laughs a little at it.

"My turn," she says, selecting a balloon, shoving it through the metal bars of the guard rail, and letting go as she announces, "It mashed potato."

"Mashed potato is also too soft for you, huh?" Magnus asks, laughing as the balloon bursts on the ground. He hefts another one. "This one is... people who like being jerks for no reason."

Mashed potatoes at least have the decency to not pretend to be a solid food, unlike jello. Regardless, Sunny still dislikes them. "This one bad dreams." She tosses another balloon down.

"You know what? I think I'll throw a bad dreams balloon, too," Magnus says, yeeting it with all his strength against the mulch below. It fully vaporizes upon contact.

Sunny watches as Magnu's balloon explodes. "Wow." He's big strong. Sunny wants to try, so she takes another balloon and thinks of something really awful to blow up. "Fires," she settles on and tries her hardest to throw the balloon as hard as Magnu did. It doesn't have quite as intense of a reaction (a phrase which here means, 'it sort of just does exactly what her other one did') but she's pleased with the outcome anyway.

Magnus gives her a double thumbs up. "Good throw, bug," he says, hefting another balloon. "This on is... wolves." He lobs it over the edge.

"This getting kidnap!" she says as she tosses another balloon.

"This one is useless adults," tossing.

She selects her next balloon and tosses it over while quietly saying, "Olaf." She watches it splat on the ground, much like she herself would have splat on the ground had Olaf gone through with his threat to drop her from the window that time he tried to marry Violet. She rushes back to the bucket and picks up two more balloons, throwing them as hard as she can down to the ground.

Magnus waits until the last balloon smashes on the ground and then opens his arms. "Want a hug before the next one?"

She nods and goes to Magnu, hugging him tightly as she starts to cry again.

Magnus squeezes her as tight as he dares, sinking down so that he's kneeling, roughly Sunny-height. "He's gone," he whispers, pressing his mouth against the top of her head. "He's never gonna hurt you or Violet or Klaus or anyone else ever again."

"Gone," she repeats, nodding. "Everyone kill him." Doesn't change all of the hurt he did before that, but at least she doesn't have to worry he will hurt Violet and Klaus and Isadora and Duncan any more.

"Everybody," Magnus agrees, with another squeeze. "It doesn't change what he did before, but everyone is safe from him now. He won't hurt Dad or Dad, either, or Crowley, or me, or anyone else."

"Uh huh. Violet and Klaus safe."

"And Jerome and Justice Strauss are helping them, remember? So they're extra safe."

"Maybe Justice Strauss adopded them..."

"Maybe! That would be nice, right? They'd have access to so many books."

"Not as many as here."

Magnus looks at her for a long, long time. "I wish they could come here, too," he says softly. He picks up a water balloon, says, "The fact that Violet and Klaus aren't here yet," and lobs it over the edge of the play structure, all without breaking the hug.

Sunny does finally break the hug, out of necessity so that she can grab a balloon for herself and throw it over the side as she says, "Don't even get visit."

"Can I ask you a question?" Magnus asks, slowly and with a little trepidation. "A maybe really hard question?"

"Uh huh."

"Do you think it would be worse to have Violet and Klaus visit but not be able to stay?"

Sunny thinks about this for a long while. "Some people stay. I make them stay."

Gods. Okay. So it's good that Violet and Klaus couldn't come, because if they left, Sunny would be properly devastated.

"I believe you," he tells her, wiping away an errant lingering tear with his thumb and then hugging her again.

"Far sibling stay, so mine too."

"Did you know Alex was my visitor last year?" Magnus asks. He sits fully down, leaning against the wall of the play structure, gesturing to tell her she can sit on his lap if she wants. "Except Alex had to go home for like four months before she found her way back to stay."

Sunny takes him up on the offer and plops down in his lap. “That long time…”

"It was a really long time." He tugs on the end of her ponytail. "It felt like forever. I started to worry that she would never show up. I think I was really cranky at Dad and Hanguang-jun about that, actually."

"You big sad if no Alex here..." She doesn't want Magnu to be sad!

"Yeah," Magnus says. "I was really sad. I actually started thinking that it would have been better if she never visited, because it just made it harder to wait after she left."

"Why?"

"Before he visited, I missed him a lot and didn't know if I'd ever see him again and it made me sad. After he visited, I knew what it would be like if he was here, and it made the waiting hurt a lot more. Especially since at first I was convinced she would show up again any day now, and then the longer it went, the harder it became to believe I'd see her again. Before she showed up for visitor's day, I had... hm. It was easier to hope."

Sunny listens intently to Magnu's story. It all sounds so incredibly familiar, except completely the opposite from her experience. When Sunny first arrived at the mansion, she was convinced if she just looked hard enough, Violet and Klaus would show up in a room somewhere. Once she realized they weren't here yet, she switched to waiting. And she waited, and she waited, and she waited. And then she waited some more.

But another visitor's day has come and gone, and her siblings did not show up. Maybe Magnu saw Alex on the first visitor's day, and that made it harder to hope he would show up for good, but he did show up for good.

Violet and Klaus didn't even get to show up for visitor's day.

That is what makes it really hard for Sunny to hope. She thinks if they did show up, surely she could figure out a way for them to stay, like how Phelia stayed, and like how Alex came back to stay. But if they don't show up at all, they must not have any sort of way to get here in the first place. If they were here she could at least have a chance.

Her former coworker Phil was an optimist, which meant he thought hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything, even situations that were neither pleasant nor full of hope. Sunny thinks that if he were here right now, he might tell her that Violet and Klaus will probably show up any minute now, and that the fact they didn't get to come visit just means they are waiting until they can move here permanently.

Sunny, as it turns out, is not much of an optimist.

She curls up in her brother's lap, fairly certain he's the only sibling she is going to ever have here.

Magnus isn't going to promise that they'll find a way, because he doesn't want to promise something so important if he can't guarantee it. "I'm just saying I know it sucks really bad," he tells her, giving her a little squeeze. "And I know I'm really, really lucky. I'm lucky to have Alex, and I'm lucky to have two great dads -- and one Jerome -- and such a great, cool, fun, smart, talented little sister. There's people I really, really miss back home, people who are like family to me, but... I know it's different than it is for you. I know it really, really sucks extra bad for you that Violet and Klaus didn't come, and the worst possible person did. And I'm sorry that it's so unfair."

"You really really lucky. I'm never lucky," says Sunny, who does not know that much of her life is chronicled in a set of books titled A Series of Unfortunate Events, or even that there's books about her at all, but if she did know, and had to guess at the title, she might guess something incredibly similar.

"No? Even to have two great dads and a good second brother?"

"Three great dads," Sunny corrects. Much like how Quigley didn't stop being Duncan and Isadora's triplet when he died, Sunny's first father didn't stop being her dad when he died either.

"Three great dads and one great mom," Magnus agrees.

Sunny nods. After a long pause, she finally says, "I'm lucky have here-family."

"But you miss your there-family too."

She nods again.

Magnus hands her a balloon. "Wanna scream and throw some water balloons about it?"

She takes the balloon and immediately goes to throw it at the ground, letting out a very loud scream with her whole chest.

Whoa. That kid has pipes. Magnus decides that his role, in this moment, is not to also throw water balloons and scream; his role is to hand her more balloons each time she releases one.

Sunny throws several balloons. She's not sure how many, as she isn't keeping count of them, but with each balloon she lets out another loud scream. After a while, she is all screamed out, and sits down, incredibly exhausted.

Edited 2025-02-14 01:57 (UTC)

Magnus sits down next to her. The level of the water balloons in the bucket is extremely depleted. "Splandoo," he says, wrapping an arm around her little body and pressing another kiss to the top of her head.

"Uh huh. Tough."

"It's gonna get better," he tells her. "I promise."

"Want it better now."

"I know, sweet bug." He strokes her hair back. "If you can think of things that we can definitely do that might help make stuff feel better more quickly, let me know, okay? We'll be sure to do them."

She nods. "We go down slide now? I done playing balloons."

"Yeah! Do you wanna go down on my lap, or do you wanna go down by yourself? I can stand at the bottom or slide down next to you."

"Lap."

"'Kay. The big slide or the medium slide?"

No matter how upset she is, she will never turn down the opportunity for big slide when the other option is just medium slide. "Big."

"Alright, bug," says Magnus, going over to the big slide and sitting down. "Climb on."

She is very careful and sits down in Magnu's lap.

Magnus wraps his arms around her, snug and tight. "Okay, now tell me: how fast do you want to go?"

"Speedy zoom."

"Speedy zoom, huh? Okay." Magnus takes a deep breath and shoves off with a good chunk of his strength. They rocket down the slide at high speeds, fast enough that they plow into the ground below it and skid a good few feet. Sunny is protected from this; she'll notice the bump down and the slowing when they hit the ground of the playground. Magnus... feels deeply uncomfortable in the jeans area. It's fine, though, if she's having fun it's worth it. He can deal with the discomfort.

"Bumpy," she says as she climbs off of Magnu's lap.

"Fun-bumpy?"

"Uh huh." Were she in a better mood she would probably be begging to go again.

"Wanna do it again, or do you wanna try the swings?"

“I tired,” she says. Between not getting a good night’s sleep, and all of the yelling and crying she has done today, she is too tired to want to play swings. “Maybe sit and you tell storytime?”

"You got it, boss. Do you wanna do storytime on a swing on my lap, or storytime on the structure?"

She was actually thinking they would just sit down on the ground, but the structure won't be too bad. "Structure."

"I'm guessing you want me to carry you?"

She nods.

"Okay, sweet bug." Magnus picks Sunny up, considers his options, and then decides to just leap onto the very top roof of the play structure instead of climbing up inside of it. He sits down on a flat section, settling her into his lap. "What kind of story do you want?"

Sunny likes it when Magnu holds her and does big jumps like that. She wants to get as good at jumping as him one day. She's almost there, a phrase which here means, "can finally jump and have both feet fully come off the ground while doing so". She wiggles herself to be cozy in Magnu's lap, sort of resting her head sideways against his chest. "Funny story."

Magnus holds her snugly, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her face. "Funny story... hm. Did I already tell you the one about the last time I went out for coffee with Thor's pet goat? Otis, not Marvin."

Edited 2025-02-17 20:50 (UTC)

She shakes her head no. "Goat drink coffee?"

"This one sure does! He likes to put on a little bonnet when he goes to the coffee shop. And spy glasses."

"A disguise," Sunny assumes.

"Yeah. He's like an investigative reporter for my valkyrie."

"Oh."

And Magnus launches into a story about Otis, Thor's dreary goat who loves therapy, and his experience becoming extremely overcaffeinated and deciding he wanted to be a therapy goat at the Chase Space. Except most mortal eyes can't see real magic, and since he's a magical talking goat, he's difficult for them to make out as an actual goat. So each of the kids there saw him as something different and equally ridiculous. A bear... a mime... a particularly gruff resident... the ghost of Magnus's uncle...

Sunny is trying reeeaaaaally hard to stay awake during Magnu's story. It's a good story and she wants to hear how it ends! But Magnu is, as always, very warm, and she is incredibly tired, so this is a challenge.

Magnus cuddles her closer, lowering his voice and speaking slowly and evenly. He's mostly talking nonsense now; he can finish the story proper later. "Rutabaga... epistemology... statuette," he says. "Indigo... handkerchief... see-saw."

It isn't even nap time yet! She has to stay awake! But, ugh, it's so frustrating how hard it is. She can't even properly pay attention to what Magnu is trying to tell her for his story, it just sounds like a bunch of nonsense words. She is determined! Every time she notices her eyes closing, she makes an effort to open them wide again!

Magnus fakes a big huge yawn. "And Jack's favorite lullaby goes like this," he murmurs, and starts hum-singing, "The wolf howls in the forest dark, he wants but he cannot sleep. Hunger tears in his wolf belly, and it’s cold down in his den. Oh wolf, oh wolf, do not come here, you’ll never get my child."

Finally, after a certain point, Sunny's eyes close and she does not notice in time to open them back up.

About ten minutes after Sunny falls asleep, the door to the playground finally eases open, and Magnus waves their dads and Szarka and Jack inside. Very, very slowly and carefully, he shifts Sunny higher in his arms, trying not to wake her, so he can climb even more carefully and slowly down onto the floor of the structure instead of the roof, and tell Dadgramore and Laerdad about his and Sunny's morning in the quietest of whispers. When Sunny wakes up, she'll still be at the playground, and her entire family will be with her.

Edited 2025-02-19 05:04 (UTC)

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Closed: The World is Quiet Here.

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