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]

"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.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"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."

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

“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”.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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!"

[biteybaby]

She very very quickly turns off the water!

[summerdude]

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?"

[biteybaby]

Sunny wants to drink her juice.

[summerdude]

"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?"

[biteybaby]

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