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]

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

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"I ride."

[summerdude]

"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."

[biteybaby]

She holds on tight to her juice and climbs on.

[summerdude]

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?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"Me see?"

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

"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?"

[biteybaby]

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?"

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"Oh yeah. Drop." That sounds good.

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

"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.

[summerdude]

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

[biteybaby]

"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".

[summerdude]

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.

[biteybaby]

"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."

[summerdude]

"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."

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

"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.

[biteybaby]

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.