Open: Well young lady, have you been good to your mother?

[biteybaby]

Sunny Baudelaire has been having quite an exciting time lately. For once, "exciting" means "filled with fun" and not "filled with terror, pain, panic, and an inordinate amount of running and hiding". Without the threat of Count Olaf and his associates finding her in an attempt to steal the Baudelaire fortune, Sunny has had more time for her studies. "Her studies" is a phrase which here means, "catching up on learning how to do things most people take for granted".

She has finally learned how to walk. She thinks the amount of words she is now able to say has increased. Magnu has even taught her a few things in sign language, which she finds is a little easier than speaking. The biggest news is that she now has five very sharp teeth, as opposed to the four she started with when she arrived.

Shortly before she arrived, Mr Poe had told the Baudelaires about an aphorism: It takes a village to raise a child. She wonders if that is why she has had so much time to grow. Her days are spent rotating around between several different guardians, babysitters, and friends, and it has been lovely. She hopes her siblings are having just as good of a time in the village of V.F.D.

Unfortunately I must report that her siblings are not having just as good of a time in the village of V.F.D., nor are they even still in the village of V.F.D. Sunny does not know this. It would probably be for the best if nobody tells her.

Comments

[futaille]

Grantaire is en route to one of his common haunts, probably a bar or maybe the game room, when he comes across the mansion's smallest human resident in a hallway. He's somehow managed to avoid meeting her thus far¹, but has definitely encountered her reputationally.

"Ah! You must be the young mademoiselle Sunny."


¹Mostly because it was more fun to have a hapless reforming villain float her around for several minutes.

[biteybaby]

Sunny extends her hand for a handshake.

[futaille]

He laughs and promptly shakes her hand. "Good to meet you at last, mademoiselle. I'm Grantaire."

[biteybaby]

Oh! She knows that name! She smiles at him. He's part of the big slumber party rotation, Sunny has deduced. "Aire!" she tells him, which is both an attempt at repeating his name, as well as a word which here means, "It's nice to put a face to the name!"

[summerdude]

"Sunny, have you ever been in love?" Magnus asks, settling her on the edge of his camp trampoline and then crawling into the center of it so she can bounce him up a storm. He's meant to be teaching her some more sign, so he signs the question, too, once they're both situated.

[biteybaby]

Sunny considers this question as she begins to jump on the trampoline. "Jump" is a word which here means, "bend her knees repeatedly, feet never actually leaving the surface". She eventually responds by signing the word for love and then saying out loud, "Violet Klaus Mama Daddy", as she does not know how to say that part in sign language yet.

[summerdude]

"Great list," Magnus says. The trampoline is barely wiggling under her movements, but he moves like she's making a humongous impact anyway. Then, signing slowly, he says, "Mama. Daddy... Do you wanna come up with name-signs for your siblings?" By now, she knows all the name-signs of the people here.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji glances up from his work at the sound of unsteady but determined footsteps. The work, as it often is, is the task of cooking dinner for his husband. At the moment that Sunny appears in the kitchen entryway, he has just placed a wok, drizzled generously with oil, over a lit burner. Around him are arrayed various ingredients: cassia bark, cooking wine, peppercorns, and a considerable quantity of sliced beef, cooked just moments before and now resting.

It is a subtle softening that his features undertake when he sees her. He takes his hand from the handle of the wok so that he can dip into a little bow.

[biteybaby]

Not only is the sound of her footsteps “unsteady” and “determined”, but it could also accurately be described as “squeaky”, thanks to the shoes she is wearing that squeak every time she takes a step.

She bows back to him, very proud of herself that she can now do that without losing balance, then asks, “Help?” at the same time she signs Sunny help you?

[lightbearinglord]

With interest, Lan Wangji watches the movements of her hands. Even without the verbal component, he would have known the sign for help. As such, he copies the only unfamiliar sign, one hand to his chest and the other aloft, then points to her with a tiny lift of his eyebrows: You? Aloud, he says, "You are welcome to help."

[socialjusticedragon]

Temeraire is settled comfortably in his pavilion, half draped across the entrance and basking in the summer sunshine. He is midway through a book of Chinese poetry that someone has liberated from the library for him; when he tilts his head at the sounds of squeaking, growing increasingly louder. What is that?

[biteybaby]

squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak

Sunny gasps. "Big!"

[socialjusticedragon]

He is indeed big. So big, in fact, that he is Very concerned that he may inadvertently squash this small human. Has he ever seen a human this small? He can't remember. Very carefully, Temeraire lowers his head to the ground, lying flat, and peers at Sunny curiously. "Hello," he offers, gentle.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad knows about Sunny. Magnus is his best friend; it's impossible that he wouldn't know about Sunny. He hasn't, until now, actually met her.

It's a situation in which his face-blindness is not a problem. There is only one person at the mansion who only comes up to his thigh and has just five teeth.

"Sunny?" he asks.

[biteybaby]

"Sunny!" Sunny introduces herself, signing Sunny! as she does so, for the second tag in a row. She has not yet met whoever this blonde person is. There are many blonde people at this mansion, which under normal circumstances would not pose much of a problem, unless you were to be playing a drawing-based party game with a group of friends and suddenly realized it is nearly impossible to tell many of the mansion residents apart when rendered in hastily-drawn stick figures.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Galahad," he says, signing his name as well -- G-flower-choice. "Are you going to meet Magnus?"

[temnota]

"Lapushka!" Aleksander called out happily once he caught sight of her. "You are just the person I wanted to see.

[biteybaby]

"Pusha!" Sunny excitedly responds as she runs up to Aleksander, her little shoes squeak squeak squeaking with every step. She holds her arms up for a big hug.

[temnota]

Aleksander beamed and immediately unslung the messenger bag he was wearing and set it on the ground next to him. He bent down and gave her a big warm hug. "And how are you today?"

[ravkanwitch]

Nina has been spending a little more time alone by choice lately, but she looks absolutely pleased when she runs across Sunny. Of course she's heard of her, who hasn't? "Oh! You must be Sunny," she says, with a smile.

[biteybaby]

“Sunny!” Sunny says, while signing Sunny! because she is, in fact, Sunny.

[ravkanwitch]

"Hello Sunny, I'm Nina," Nina tells her, crouching down to offer her a hand to shake with the utmost courtesy. "What are you up to?"

[kadewest]

Okay, that is a whole-ass baby. Kade has no idea what to do with whole-ass babies. He knows what to do with twelve year olds, or seven year olds who look sixteen, or sixteen year olds who have spent decades in an underworld. Babies? Babies are tiny breakable new things with needs that they struggle to express in a way that's totally different from how Worlds-travelers struggle to express themselves.

Luckily he's just spent a very bizarre day hanging out with Jack and Alexis and their new son. Granted, their son was constructed out of different body parts and lightning, and instead of food he just eats electricity, but it's the same basic concept, right?

He sets his apple down and crouches. "Good morning."

[biteybaby]

"Reggelt," she says in return. This is a word which here means, "Good morning to you as well!"

[kadewest]

"I'm Kade," he says. "Are you new here?"