Closed: The World is Quiet Here.

[biteybaby]

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.

Comments

[biteybaby]

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!"

[summerdude]

"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?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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."

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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."

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

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."

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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?"

[biteybaby]

"Need what?"

[summerdude]

"Snacks, potty, something to drink?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"Juice please."

[summerdude]

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?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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."

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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?"

[biteybaby]

"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.