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

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.

Sunny extends her hand for a handshake.

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

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!"

Another laugh. "Yes, R¹! I do hope you've only heard good things."

¹Thankfully, in her attempt to repeat his name, she independently came up with his nickname, if you listen in French.

Edited 2024-07-22 03:50 (UTC)

She nods, then begins to list out several of the things she has heard from her very reliable sources. These sources include Crowley, so amidst all of her words that Grantaire will not be able to understand, he might just happen to pick up on the word 'Doctor', assuming the mansion translator catches that one.

He listens most attentively, even to the parts he cannot remotely comprehend. That one, though, he catches. "Oh, mademoiselle, have you been talking to Crowley? I assure you I'm not a doctor. I have no idea where he managed to get that idea, and I told him I'm not, and yet..."

Huh. That's odd. "Twin?" She thought all of the Evil Twin nonsense had ended, but if this Grantaire is not a doctor then maybe it started back up again.

"Just the one of me, I'm afraid."

Sunny is confused. Maybe Doctor Grantaire is worried that she, like many other people her size, is afraid of doctors, and doesn't want to scare her. She has to admit, her last encounter with a doctor didn't end well, which is a polite way of saying, "she watched the doctor get cut in half on a sawblade".

"Before I came here, I did have friends that were doctors, at least. Or close enough, at any rate."

“Falsnasp,” she tells him, which is a word which here means, “We will simply have to agree to disagree”.

Grantaire nods sagely. "Falsnasp," he echoes.

Edited 2024-07-22 13:10 (UTC)

Sunny lifts her arms up and says, "Up?" She can walk now on her own, but it is still nice to be carried sometimes, she thinks.

"Certainly!" He bends to easily pick her up. "Would you like to sit on my shoulders, mademoiselle?"

"Esh!" she tells him, excited, while signing yes with one hand, excited. No wonder everyone likes to have slumber parties with Grantaire! He seems like a lot of fun!

It's a slightly different kind of fun from most of the slumber parties, but he promptly hoists Sunny up onto his shoulders and glances up at her. "Good?"

Sunny wraps her tiny arms around Grantaire's head. "Esh."

"Perfect! Was there anywhere in particular you were wanting to go or should I run around like a confused bull?"

She giggles at the thought of Grantaire running around like a confused bull. "Rodeo!" she tells him.

He has absolutely no idea what a rodeo is, but he does absolutely pick up on the spirit of the answer. "Very well, mademoiselle! Hold on tight." Once he's sure Sunny is secure, he promptly goes barrelling down the hallway.

Sunny is screaming, but not with fear like she would if Count Olaf and his associates were to show up, but instead with laughter. This is a lot of fun.

Thankfully, the mansion has many hallways. Grantaire continues running and turning down random ones here and there, mooing every time he makes a turn.

Sunny is along for the ride, a phrase which here means, "Not paying attention to what hallways the turn down whatsoever". She instead starts mooing with Grantaire.

Mooing down random hallways is clearly the way to go about the mansion. Grantaire is laughing between moos, bouncing Sunny a bit as he runs.

Sunny is suddenly aware they're in a hallway she does not recognize, but she assumes Grantaire knows where they are. After all, he has been here longer than her, from what she's heard, and probably has been walking the whole time he's been here, unlike her, so why wouldn't he know?

Grantaire has crawled back to his room a couple times after exceptionally hard nights of drinking, but yes, for the most part he has been walking. Still, though, that doesn't give him any more idea of where they are right now than Sunny does. Still, though, that doesn't stop him from mooing around a couple more corners before he slows. "I think I need to take a small break, mademoiselle."

Sunny is still giggling, but eventually her giggles slow and she switches to breathing deep to try and catch her breath from all of the aforementioned giggling.

He's grinning, and looks around. "Would you happen to have been down this hallway before?"

She shakes her head no, despite being up on Grantaire's shoulders, where he undoubtedly will not be able to see it. "Aire," she says, which here means, "I assumed you had."

"I may have gotten a bit turned around. New rooms and hallways appear all the time here." He opens the nearest door. It's a closet full of left shoes.

Sunny squirms, trying to get down. She wants to open doors too! She is tall enough to open a door now!

He promptly plucks her off his shoulders and sets her down. "We'll be explorers."

Sunny likes this game. She walks over to the next door, her shoes making squeak squeak squeak noises the whole way, then stands up on her tippy toes to turn the doorknob. It's another closet, this one mostly empty except for a single sugar bowl resting on a shelf. Sunny closes the door. She doesn't know how that could be useful to anyone.

Grantaire walks over to another door to open it. It's not actually a closet this time, but a half bathroom. "... All right then."

Sunny squeak squeak squeaks over to a door and when she opens it all she can say is, "Wow."

This door does not open into a closet or a half bathroom. It instead opens into a giant room full of brightly colored, huge inflatable bouncy castles, slides, and obstacle courses. The floor is carpeted in a design that looks like confetti sprinkled around, and there is a small cubby against the wall beside the entrance, that looks like it's an appropriate size to hold several pairs of shoes.

Sunny quickly squeak squeak squeaks back to Grantaire, grabs his hand, and squeak squeak squeaks back to the room, pulling her fellow explorer along with her.

Edited 2024-07-23 03:29 (UTC)

Grantaire's eyes widen a bit as he takes in the room Sunny has discovered. "A successful venture, it seems."

She sits beside the cubbies, undoing the velcro on her shoes and pulling them off, carefully placing them inside the slots. As soon as she has them off, she runs as fast as she can, which admittedly is not terribly fast, as she is still quite new at this whole 'running' thing, and faceplants into the side of one of the bouncy castles. She's laughing, clearly excited by all of this.

Grantaire can't help but laugh as well as Sunny plows into the side of the bouncy castle. "Well, this looks like quite the diversion." He starts to pull off his own shoes as well.

Sunny tries to climb into a bouncy castle, but keeps sliding off of the slippery, bouncy vinyl leading to the opening.

He walks over. "Would you like help up?"

"Please!"

"As polite as a rabbit!" Grantaire promptly picks Sunny up again and lifts her into the entrance with a big swoop.

She rolls inside and motions for Grantaire to follow her, before trying to stand up, failing to stand up, trying to stand up, failing to stand up, then finally standing up. The ground inside this bouncy castle is a lot bouncier than she is used to. It is also a lot castleier than she is used to.

Grantaire promptly steps into the bouncy castle after her. "Oh, this is certainly different."

Sunny grabs Grantaire's hands and starts bouncing, a word which here means, "bending her knees repeatedly and not actually jumping at all".

He 'jumps' in a pretty similar way for now, realizing that if he were to actually jump, the recoil when he hit the floor again may well send Sunny flying.

Sunny would not mind, and as they are inside of a bouncy castle, she likely would not even be hurt, but fortunately she is just as happy to bounce like this with Grantaire.

Having only just met Sunny and wanting to at least work up to airtime, especially given that it's also his own first time in a bouncy castle, gives him at least a slight measure of restraint, although his bounces are slowly getting bigger.

Sunny loses her balance at one point, saved from falling completely only by the fact she is still holding hands with Grantaire. This causes her to twist around, halfway dangling in the air. She is laughing though, so it must not be too bad.

He swings her in the air a couple of times before helping her get back to the surface for more bouncing.

If you have ever spent any considerable amount of time around toddlers, you will know that one of their favorite activities is to suddenly run off when you are least expecting it. Sunny has spent a lot of her life running, at least in a metaphorical sense, as she could not literally run until very recently. The amount of time she has spent metaphorically running has not, it would seem, put her off of literally running, because after another minute of bouncing in the bouncy castle, she suddenly runs off. She turns around on her belly to slide out of the small opening, and makes her way over to a large inflatable obstacle course.

Grantaire then properly jumps a couple of times before ducking out of the bouncy castle and following behind her. "What have you found now?"

"This," she answers, struggling to climb up on to the obstacle course.

"Marvelous." He helps her up onto it much like he did with the bouncy castle.

"Thanks!" she says as she squirms her way through the hole at the start. She begins by running up to the vertical barriers and just hugging one of them. This, she assumes, is a very important step.

"Clearly built for the purpose."

She turns to look, to make sure Grantaire is following her through.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." He squeezes through the entrance after her and promptly 'stands' on his knees, also giving one of the entrance obstacles a hug.

Sunny stops hugging the barrier and punches it. It is much better for punching than a crash test dummy would be, but it does still hit her in the face on its recoil. She falls down and shouts “Dead!” before crawling her way through the other barriers.

Grantaire follows behind, remaining on his knees. "Vanquished in battle? Your bravery will not be forgotten, mademoiselle."

Next Sunny comes across tubes that stretch from one side of the obstacle course to the other, forming what could only be described as a sort of barricade. Most barricades tend to be made out of doors and chairs and tables and precisely one cow, whereas this barricade has no doors or chairs or tables and precisely zero cows, which does make it easier for Sunny to climb underneath.

"Raaaa!" she yells in response to Grantaire's comment about not being forgotten. It might be a battle cry.

Grantaire did get the opportunity to witness the building of a stereotypical barricade from the convenient view of an upstairs window, and this is only passingly similar. He squeezes through the upper tubes on his own way through.

Edited 2024-07-26 00:03 (UTC)

The next obstacle is a pair of tunnels to crawl through. Sunny hops into one, but rather than crawl through, she sits in it, reclined, to catch her breath. "Zoom," she says, which here means, "That was a lot of running."

To be entertaining, Grantaire sticks his head and shoulders into the other tunnel. "Zoom," he agrees.

Sunny rests for a while. It is important to take regular breaks, even when doing an activity you enjoy, such as sewing, cleaning, writing stories with friends about fictional characters trapped in a mysteriously large mansion with no way out and no way to bring their friends and loved ones to stay with them, weaving, or even running through an inflatable obstacle course.

Sunny slithers out of the tunnel on her belly, arms first, and crawls over to Grantaire. "Aire," she says, tapping his leg, then taps her own chest. "Aire. Baudelaire." She wonders if there is some significance here.

Edited 2024-07-26 01:00 (UTC)

He wriggles out of the tunnel and looks down at Sunny. "Ah, a grand R and a handsome one, mademoiselle Baudelaire."

Having sorted that out, Sunny turns and goes back through the tunnel she had been resting in before.

And Grantaire follows her by squeezing through his own tunnel in turn.

The last obstacle is a hill meant for climbing, with nubs to grab on to and stand on. Sunny tries, but ends up falling and sliding back down. It rubs her knees in an unpleasant way that might make most people her size cry, but Sunny has been through a lot, and so she doesn’t pay much attention to it. She turns to look at Grantaire again. “Help?”

"Of course, mademoiselle." He lifts her just enough to give her a boost, so she can still work at climbing but without the danger of falling.

"Thanks," she says politely. Once she climbs to the top of the obstacle she sits down, patiently waiting for Grantaire to follow so that they can slide down together.

"Certainly." As she sits, he climbs up after her. "We have summited the mountain."

"Norgay," she says, which here means, "It was very tall but we did it". This is, of course, not the highest thing Sunny has climbed. That would be the 66 floors leading up to Jerome Squalor's penthouse apartment. But she can't use her teeth on an inflatable mountain, not unless she wants to climb a deflated pile of vinyl instead of a mountain.

"Well done," he says, holding his hand up in Sunny's high-five range.

She gives him an enthusiastic high-five, which has the unlucky side effect of causing her to lose her balance and start sliding down the slide. When she gets to the bottom she rolls off of the structure, landing on her stomach on the festively carpeted floor. She bites her tongue in the process, and as her teeth are very sharp, this hurts a good deal so she starts crying.

"Oh no! Rescue incoming!" He slides down himself and kneels down to help get Sunny back upright and scope out the damage.

Fortunately there is a doctor here! Sunny sits patiently as Doctor R looks her over. She isn’t bleeding, so the physician won’t need to worry about that. “Physician” is a word which here means, “Grantaire, who is very much not an actual doctor”.

He examines her with his very inexpert eye. "You aren't bleeding, so that's good. You'll probably be sore for a bit but you'll be just fine again soon enough."

She nods, grateful to have a grown up here who seems to know what he's doing. Definitely an improvement over the last doctor Sunny knew. More put together than she is as well, both literally and figuratively.

Grantaire would absolutely recoil upon hearing himself described as more put together than anyone, so it's a good thing he can't. "What would you like to do next?"

He is absolutely more put together than Dr Orwell, in that he has not been brutally sliced in half on a lumber mill saw. It isn't a very high bar to surpass. Sunny looks around the room before pointing at a rather large inflatable that is one giant slide. She has decided to show the slides who's boss.

Grantaire, not as grateful as he should be at not having been literally sliced in half at any point, takes Sunny's hand and heads toward the giant slide.

She needs help getting up onto this one as well, but by now that is likely to be expected.

And he happily provides, giving Sunny a boost.

Climbing the hill for this slide is a little easier, due to how it is manufactured. This is very lucky, as it is a much, much larger hill, and Sunny would hate to make Grantaire have to carry her up it the whole way. By the time she reaches the top she has to stop and rest to catch her breath.

"Well done, mademoiselle." He climbs up after her and sits next to her. "A monumental achievement, to be sure."

Sunny very carefully scoots over to the edge of the slide, preparing herself to go down. It is very high, but it isn't as high as the window Count Olaf and the Hook-Handed Man threatened to drop her from when they made Violet be in that terrible play. It isn't as high as Aunt Josephine's house used to be, before it fell into Lake Lachrymose. It certainly isn't as high as the top of the ersatz elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue, which Sunny and her siblings jumped down and climbed out of multiple times.

"Together?" she asks Grantaire, holding out a hand if he wants to hold it and slide down with her.

Grantaire promptly nods and takes Sunny's hand. "Together."

She scoots her little body off the edge and slides down, holding on to Grantaire's hand. This does, of course, end up making her twist a little on the way down, but overall it is a much better sliding experience than the other one had been. She doesn't even bite her tongue at the end.

He slides down along with her, making sure to keep her reasonably upright. "A great success!"

She immediately runs back over to the side with the entrance, wanting to go again.

Grantaire follows and gives her a boost again.

She climbs the slide, but this time does not wait for Grantaire, and instead slides down all by herself.

"Well done!" He climbs up after and looks down to make sure he won't slide directly into her.

Sunny also does not want Grantaire to slide directly into her, as this slide goes very fast, and she doesn't want to get squished. She wobbles over to the side, out of harm's way.

Once Sunny is clear, Grantaire slides down himself. "Voilà!"

She tackles him.

He sprawls, starfish-like, on the ground. "Aaaaagh, you got me!"

She climbs on top of his tummy and sits up.

"I have been vanquished by an almighty conqueror!"

"Raaaaaa!"

"I surrender!"

She flops down onto his chest, her arms going roughly around his neck as she does so. It may be a little more forceful than Grantaire is expecting, depending of course, upon how forceful he is expecting it to be.

"Oh, mademoiselle, I am truly at your mercy!"

She tries to tickle him, however her hands are quite small and not terribly coordinated yet, so whether or not she succeeds in tickling him is up in the air.

If he's being strictly accurate, it doesn't tickle all that much, but it's clear what she's attempting, so he squirms and laughs nevertheless.

"Raaaaaa!" she repeats.

"You win, you win!"

She rolls off, giggling.

He slowly sits up straight. "You are a formidable opponent, mademoiselle."

Sunny shifts to rest her head in Grantaire’s lap for a moment, then decides she wants some chocolate milk.

“Chocolate milk?” She asks him before getting up and moving to get her shoes.

"A young lady of taste and distinction also. Let's go get you your drink." He stands and goes to get his own shoes as well.

Sunny’s shoes velcro, so she is able to put them on by herself. They are on the wrong feet, but surely that doesn’t matter much, right?

Grantaire is still in the process of tying his own. "Mademoiselle, I would recommend switching those. You might find it more comfortable in the long run."

She stares at her feet, then sits back down to swap them around.

"Well done. I do believe the straps on them point toward the foot they should go on."

She stares at her feet again, thinking this over.

He finishes with his own shoes and kneels next to her, pointing out the strap direction. "You see. This way goes on that foot, this way on that one."

“Huh.”

"I hope that was helpful. Just between us, though, I'm not very helpful most of the time."

Sunny doesn't think that's entirely true; he has been helping her all afternoon to get up on the big inflatable things. She doesn't argue though, she simply holds out her hands to see if he will help her up off the floor.

That goes without saying, of course. He sweeps her up and plops her back on his shoulders.

Sunny is now wondering how many helpful things she can get Dr Aire to do, since he doesn't seem to think he is helpful. He clearly just hasn't noticed yet.

"Go go!" she says once settled atop his shoulders.

"Let's go!" He ducks through the doorway, mindful of her head, and takes off down the hallway at a jog.

Sunny is less outwardly-excited about this trip, but that is due more to how tired she got jumping around on the inflatable things and less to do with any actual level of enjoyment.

He manages to make it back to familiar territory, at least. "Where would you like to go next, mademoiselle?"

"Chocolate milk!"

"That is right! Forgive my poor memory!" He makes a sharp turn, making sure to keep Sunny properly secured, and zooms to the nearest kitchen.

Once they are in the kitchen, Sunny begins squirming to get down. "Help," she says, asking for help down to the floor.

He promptly sweeps her off his shoulders and sets her back down. "Let me get you your drink."

Oh look, she didn't even have to ask for help this time. Sunny smiles.

He opens a cabinet and sees a convenient sippy cup front and center. "Oh, this looks useful!" He takes it and goes to the fridge where he pours in some milk and some chocolate syrup, putting the lid on and shaking it up until it's mixed well before presenting Sunny with the results. "And there you are, mademoiselle."

"Thanks," she says. Fortunately this kitchen has also provided a Sunny-sized table with Sunny-sized chairs, so she sits down, drinking the milk. After a moment she removes the cup from her mouth and asks, "Snack?"

"But of course." He goes looking and returns with a plate of baby baby carrots and graham crackers. "Will this do?"

She grins and starts eating one of the graham crackers. "Napkin?"

He promptly grabs two napkins, tucks one into her collar and sets the second next to the plate. "As mademoiselle requests."

She's wondering when would be the right time to point out how helpful he has been. She takes a big sip from her sippy cup.

"Let me know if you need more." He grabs some cheese and crackers for himself and sits up on the counter to eat them.

Sunny enjoys her snack for a while, until she drops the sippy cup on the floor. "Oh no!" she says, staring at Grantaire.

Grantaire sets his own plate down as he slips off the counter to retrieve the cup and set it back on Sunny's table. "There you are, mademoiselle."

"Helper," she says with a look that seems to say, 'told you so'.

"You, mademoiselle, are entirely worth helping."

Sunny wonders if he's just saying that, or if he's actually just this helpful with everyone. Probably the latter, it's probably why so many people want to have sleepovers with him.

If asked that question, Grantaire would almost certainly get the answer wrong, although he would correctly say that that's not exactly the reason for the sleepover frequency. He returns to his perch on the counter with his snack, keeping an eye out for any further drops.

It would be incorrect to say that Sunny eats the rest of her snack. A much more accurate statement would be that she eats a few more bites of her snack and drinks all of the chocolate milk, but either way, she is now full and covered in graham cracker mush. She picks up the napkin and wipes her face, and is still full and covered in graham cracker mush, however she did move some of the mush around a little.

Grantaire finishes his own snack and wets a rag, wringing it out before properly wiping off Sunny's face. "Good as new."

"Helper Aire!" Sunny says with a grin.

"... Oh no, that's going to ruin my reputation if you keep that up."

Sunny giggles. "Mean Aire! Bad!" which here means, "We wouldn't want that, I will simply have to tell everyone you're an unhelpful jerk."

He grins brightly. "Excellent!"

She giggles, but then decides she has a serious question. "Why?"

"Why? Oh. Well. The better someone thinks I might be, the higher the expectations will be, and the more disappointed they'll be if I don't meet them."

Sunny frowns. She does not think that makes much sense. "No," she says, disagreeing.

"Ah, a contrarian in the making. I wholeheartedly approve."

She wishes Magnu or Crowley, or even Aziraphale were here now, to help her explain why she thinks Grantaire is being silly. As it is, she just sighs and slumps over, upset that she can't fully explain herself in this situation.

"Oh no." He sits on the floor next to her. "What did I do?"

She turns to peer at him for a moment, and then grabs either side of his head so he has to look at her. "Nice. Helper. Okay?"

He blinks. "Right. All right."

She stares at him for another moment, then kisses his forehead, then lets go of his face.

"Thank you," he says somewhat sheepishly.

Sunny yawns.

"Tired? Where should I take you to sleep?"

She shrugs. She can't remember right now who's turn it is on the rotation. "House," she settles on, referring to Waetee and Sagramore's house. She thinks it is more comfortable there than in any of the rooms in the mansion.

He smiles a little. "Sagramore and Laertes's? Certainly. On my shoulders again?"

She shakes her head no, she wants to just be carried the regular way this time. She looks at her cup, which is now empty, and holds it up to Grantaire. "Milk?" she asks, which here means, "Would you be so kind as to refill my sippy cup before we head out?"

He takes the cup as he stands. "Certainly, mademoiselle. Regular or chocolate again?"

"Chocolate!" she says, even though this is likely very bad for her tummy.

"Of course." He goes to clean out the cup first before refilling it. It is in fact chocolate milk again, although there's a bit less chocolate this time. Because although Grantaire of all people is not one to deny indulgences, Sunny is still very small. He picks her back up and hands her the sippy cup. "There you are."

"Thanks," she says before shoving the cup in her mouth and leaning her head over on Grantaire's shoulder.

"You're welcome." He holds Sunny close, bouncing her gently, as he heads off to go outside and over to the house to drop her off.

She is mostly asleep before they are even most of the way to the house. Her sippy cup threatens to fall a few times.

He shifts very carefully to keep a hand on the sippy cup as he makes his way through the trees. He's delivering precious cargo, after all.

Sagramore is inside reading poetry at the kitchen table, and when he hears Grantaire knock on the door he gets to his feet to answer it.

"Hello there."

At the sound of knocking, Sunny opens her eyes part of the way, but she doesn't lift up her head or even reach a level most people would consider 'fully awake'. She closes her eyes again.

He nods down at Sunny. "We had a small adventure. I asked her where to take her to sleep, and I am now delivering her as asked."

"Oh, of course." He pushes his reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "We built a cradle for her. Does she need her swaddling changed?"

Yes.

A nod. "I believe it does, yes."

"All right, let me take her, I'll get her cleaned up and settled." He lifts Sunny out of Grantaire's arms.

He hands her over carefully. "She was clean before we set off here, or I would have taken care of it."

Sunny makes a little noise as she is shuffled from Grantaire to Sagramore, but quickly settles on Sagramore's shoulder.

"It's all right, I almost believe thou didst not do it on purpose," with a grin. "Thank thee for bringing her."

"It was my pleasure, I assure you."

She finally falls entirely asleep. It's a real shame this happened before she got her diaper changed.

Sagramore murmurs to her fondly, and takes her inside.

"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.

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.

"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.

She repeats the signs for Mama and Daddy back to Magnu, being very careful to try and remember them. "Esh!" she says excited in response to his question. She signs yes at the same time, because she is very studious. "Seslarth," she tells Magnu, which here means, "Then when they get here I can teach them their new names!"

"Perfect," says Magnus, grinning, even though he's actually very worried that Violet and Klaus might not make it here. By now, Sunny has told him a lot about her siblings, but he does a little gentle bounce to shake both of them and says, "What sort of vibes should we capture with their names?"

The bounce causes her to lose balance and she falls, rolling toward the center of the trampoline where Magnu is, as though she were a bowl of garlic on a tablecloth in a demonstration of the concept of gravity. Fortunately, as she is on a trampoline, falling does not hurt, and she giggles before answering Magnu’s question.

“Klaus gajsasky,” she tells him, which is her way of saying, “Klaus likes to read, and can find any information he ever needs in any library.” She signs book. She knows Magnu showed her read at one point but she can’t remember that one right now.

Magnus gives her a little tickle, then signs book back at her. "We could try 'book-brother,'" he says, thoughtfully. "K-brother-book? But that might be a little complicated to pull off." Sunny is very, very good at signing, but he's been teaching her some adjustments to certain words, to make things simpler for her little baby hands.

This only serves to make Sunny more determined to get it correct. She tries, and gets it almost correct, though her fingers being so small does make it a little complicated. She looks at Magnu, waiting on him to let her know whether or not she messed it up.

"Very good," says Magnus, proudly. He's thinking through solutions. He's actually picked up some books from the library, too, about the hand shapes that are hard for babies in the same way that certain sounds are hard for babies. Of course, Sunny is a miracle genius baby who is great at all sorts of communication, but she still has those cute little baby hands.

He decides the best solution is to sign it at her again, much more slowly, so she can see the way he forms a K in the middle of the sign for 'brother,' instead of pointing in the usual way, and then transitions it into the sign for 'book.'

Sunny copies Magnu, going slowly to make sure she gets everything down, then repeats it again a couple of times, going faster each time. "Paskagl," she says once she's got the hang of it, which is her way of saying, "I like it! I think Klaus would too, and I think he would appreciate that I had to work hard to learn how to do it."

Something else occurs to her though, related to the sign for 'brother'. She signs to Magnu, Lancelot you brother? The signs are very similar, she thinks. And they do play swords with each other often. What Sunny does not realize is that this is what is often referred to as a "coincidence".

"Brother?" Magnus asks, surprised. "Why?"

She signs brother and then Lancelot. They are very similar signs, she thinks. Both involve her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead.

Magnus repeats brother, showing how the pointing is a little bit different than Lancelot's L, and then he laughs. "He's not my brother," he says. "He is technically Galahad's dad, though. Galahad's like my brother. Lancelot is not like my dad."

Sunny did not know Lancelot was a dad, and is now wondering why he did not know how to change her diaper when she first arrived. She does make a mental note that Galahad is like Magnu's brother. Magnu is like her brother too - a phrase which here means, "he is fun to be around, and helps her without being patronizing", unlike some other Magnii we could mention who, while fun to be around, are a little patronizing.

She practices the differences between Lancelot and brother.

Magnus smiles at the look of deep thought on Sunny's face. "It's weird. Lancelot came here before Galahad was born. They're from different times."

"...Twin?" she asks. She thought all of the Evil Twins were gone already!

"No, no, ever since they both got here."

"Huh." Much to think about.

"It's a strange, strange world we live in, Sunny," Magnus sighs. "It doesn't get any less weird, I think."

She sighs. "Ecirtaeb?" she asks Magnu, which here means, "By the way, why were you asking me about people I've loved before?"

"Oh, just curious." Magnus twists to face her. "Apparently my Evil Twin gave Hanguang-jun my mom's old locket. It feels... weird. I think everyone hated the other me."

Mama? she signs. "Photo?" she asks, wondering if a locket means he has a photo of his mother.

"Yeah, wanna see?" Magnus asks, and scrambles to the edge of the trampoline, then launching himself off the side so he can rummage through his cooler for it. "Don't bite this one, it's old," he adds, coming back with the locket. If she wants to bite a necklace, she can bite Jack.

"Promise," she says, promising not to bite the necklace.

"Okay," says Magnus. He opens the locket and passes it to her. On one side is his mom, grinning, with her blonde pixie haircut and freckles and sparkling green eyes; on the other is Magnus when he was ten. Even as a kid, his eyes looked hollow and dead inside.

"Magnu!" Sunny says excitedly, recognizing the photo of Magnu even though he is much younger in it. She carefully touches it, then touches Magnu's face. Then she turns her attention to the photo that must be of his mother. Sunny looks at it for a long while. She does not have any photos of her mother. Her Evil Twin did not leave any pictures of anyone when she left.

Sunny wonders if Magnu was able to remember what his mother looked like before he got this photo of her. Sunny cannot remember what her mother looked like. She would like a photo. She wonders if she will forget what Klaus and Violet look like before they finally get here.

Magnus watches her look at the locket, heart very full and warm over how careful she's being, and that trademark look of deep thought on her face. He climbs back onto the trampoline and sprawls next to her. "What's on your mind?"

“Ahmember?” She asks Magnu, which here means, “Did you remember what she looked like before you got this?”

"I did. Valhalla would generate old pictures, even if they previously got burned up." Magnus realizes what he's just said, and grimaces. "So it's just been since I got here that I haven't been able to see her. Do you, um. Do you remember what yours looked like?"

Sunny sits for a while, trying to remember anything if she can. Finally she says, “Big,” because she can remember her mother being tall. Most people are tall to Sunny.

“Fire,” she says, which here means, “All of our belongings, including photos got burned up. But I am not at Valhalla, I’m here, so I think that means I cannot get new ones.”

"You know," Magnus says, thoughtfully. "Galahad is really good at drawing. Maybe if we try to come up with a list of details, we can describe your family to him and he can draw them for you."

“Violet Klaus!” She says, confidently. What this means is something along the lines of, “I can definitely remember what my two older siblings look like!” This does, of course, imply that she does not feel confident about remembering what her two older parents look like.

"Great! So we can start with them, and maybe as we work on it, we can figure out your mom and dad too?"

She grins, and tells Magnu, "Good idea!" She then very carefully hands the locket back to him.

"Thank you," Magnus says, and climbs back off the trampoline to put it away again.

Sunny practices doing log rolls while Magnu is gone.

He's only gone for a second, and when he comes back, it's with pretzel rods and fruit leather. He watches Sunny fondly for a moment before rejoining her on the trampoline.

"Pretzel!" Sunny exclaims excitedly while signing Pretzel.

"I got you chewy, too," Magnus says, holding up the fruit leather. "Just in case you wanted to try it."

"Okay." She reaches for one of those instead. She doesn't think she will like it as much as the pretzel, but biting is biting. And it doesn't seem soft, like mashed potatoes, and it is definitely not liquid, like cold cucumber soup, so she might enjoy it. She takes a big bite. It is not as bad as mashed potatoes or cold cucumber soup, but it does want to stick to her five very sharp teeth in a way she is not terribly fond of.

"If you don't like it you don't have to finish it," Magnus says, laughing (in a friendly way) at the look on her face.

She hands it back to Magnu as she swallows the one bite she did take.

Magnus looks at the fruit leather with its little teeth marks, shrugs, and shoves the rest of it in his mouth as he passes Sunny the pretzels.

She happily begins gnawing on a pretzel. "Magnu happy?" she asks between bites. This means, "Are you happy being here? Even though your mother isn't?"

"I am," Magnus says. "Mom died, like, ten years ago." He does feel weird about the fact that the other version of him that came here got to see her, apparently more than once? "And I miss the, like, family me and Alex made in Valhalla, but Alex is here, and I've made a family here, too. If I went home, I'd miss the people here."

Sunny moves to lay her head down in Magnu's lap. "Ralkote," she tells him, a word which here means, "I'm happy you're here too, but I'm sorry that there are some people you are still missing from home."

"Same to you, Sunny," Magnus says, stroking her little ponytail. "Do you wanna nap now, or do you wanna figure out a name for Violet?"

Sunny sits back up. "Violet!" she says, determined. After all, Violet and Klaus could very well show up while she's taking her nap today, and it would be very embarrassing if she only had a new name to show Klaus. Violet might feel left out.

"Okay," Magnus says, wiping some pretzel crumb from her very cute little top. "Tell me about Violet."

"Inventor," Sunny explains, a word which here means, "She is very good at inventing devices. She will pull her hair up with a ribbon first, to help her think, and then she can figure out how to make anything!"

"Hmmmm," says Magnus. A modification of invent preceded by tapping his head with a V for Violet is pretty simple, and well within Sunny's abilities. He proposes this to Sunny, showing her what it looks like.

She copies, and approves. “Good,” she says with a nod. Now when they get here she can show them both new names!

"Great," with a grin. "You wanna nap now, or you wanna find some mischief to get into?"

She thinks this over. Nap, she signs, because she has found she quite enjoys taking naps, now that her days are filled with fun playtime instead of terror and peril.

"I was hoping you'd say that," says Magnus, who has learned the joys of napping since befriending Sunny. He stretches out on the trampoline and gestures for her to curl up however is most comfortable to her. "Want a naptime story?"

"Uh-huh!" she says, which here means, "Yes please!" as she lays down at Magnus's side, her head resting on his shoulder like a pillow.

Magnus cranes down a little so that he can kiss the top of her head. "Once upon a time," he starts, quietly, "there was an eight-legged horse named Stanley. He was really fast! So fast that he could run straight up cliffs..."

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.

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?

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."

“Sunny!” she explains, repeating her name in sign at the same time. Once he tells her she can help, she walks to stand beside him and tries to see by standing on her tippy toes. It does not work as well as she had hoped, and she is still unable to see what is going on.

The problem is immediately evident, naturally. Lan Wangji scoops Sunny up barely a moment later and deposits her on the counter, what he deems to be a relatively safe distance from the lit burner. From there, she should be able to see that the oil in his wok is starting to gleam with the heat.

"Hot," Sunny says, expertly, pointing at the wok. She hasn't had much opportunity to cook thus far in her life, but the few times she has been able to help out have been enlightening. Cooking is related to eating, which is related to biting, so she is very interested in it as well.

"Mn," Lan Wangji says, agreeing with Sunny's assessment of the matter. He nods toward the neatly-arranged beef, sitting in slices on a serving platter at the back of the stove atop an unlit burner. "My husband would be disappointed if I did not impart that with much more flavor. Heating the aromatics unlocks their flavor." Demonstratively, he scrapes a little pile of thinly-sliced ginger and garlic into the wok.

Sunny help she signs again, then reaches, asking if there's anything she can actually do to help. She arrived too late to thinly-slice the ginger and garlic, unfortunately, but there might be something else she can do other than watch.

The oil sizzles, as does the ginger and garlic, and the smell quickly fills the kitchen. Lan Wangji picks up his pair of long cooking chopsticks as he contemplates Sunny's offer. "Will you measure out the chili bean paste into my wok? As much as you like." With his free hand, he picks up a little already-open jar of red bean paste and sets it next to Sunny, along with a small spoon. He gives the aromatics a stir, then lifts the wok and brings it to her. This way he can intervene quickly if she does seem likely to come too close and burn herself.

Sunny very carefully spoons out a small helping of the chili bean paste. "Small helping" is a phrase which here means, "a very large helping, actually".

A very large helping is precisely what Lan Wangji wanted. He meets her eye with an impeccably serious look. "Well done." Wei Ying will love it. He returns the wok to the flame and gives it all a brisk stir. The scent in the room shifts to something much spicier as the heat suffuses the bean paste.

Sunny likes how the cooking is making the room smell, and she is happy that she did the cooking correctly enough that Lan Wangji told her "well done".

"Stir?" she asks, wanting to help stir.

"Mn," Lan Wangji agrees. Because the cooking chopsticks are quite long, he slides open a drawer and presents her with a smaller pair, bronze and usually meant for eating. "You stir and I will add the spices."

"Euphemia," Sunny says, accepting the chopsticks. This is a word which here means, "Thank you for finding me an appropriately sized pair of chopsticks with which I can help you cook by stirring the food while you add the spices".

As the person in charge of relaying and narrating Sunny Baudelaire's time at the mansion to all of you, I realize I may be slightly biased, but I would like to happily report that Sunny is indeed much better at stirring the food than most people her age would be.

Lan Wangji was prepared for the contents of the wok to go flying, and poised to deploy some cultivator reflexes to mitigate the situation, but he is not terribly surprised that Sunny is an exceptionally competent baby. He watches her, just for a moment, with banked warmth in his eyes. "Thank you," he tells her, and then he sets to fulfilling his half of the proposed bargain: peppercorns, fennel seeds, the cassia bark, a star anise, and a pod of cao guo all join the ingredients.

“Welcome!” Sunny says to Lan Wangji as she continues to stir.

He can't possibly help but smile at her; as usual, it's a tiny thing, the sort of glimmer of sudden warmth that calls to mind a distant lantern spotted from faraway on a cold night. Because Sunny is stirring so diligently, Lan Wangji is free to pick up the platter of sliced beef and use the cooking chopsticks to neatly slide it all into the medley of ingredients.

As she continues to stir, she sniffs the air and smiles. "Yummy!" she says, a word which here means, "It smells good!"

"With luck, Wei Ying will agree." Ultimately, there is little Wei Ying will not eat, but Lan Wangji can tell by now when he has truly pleased his husband.

Sunny grins. If Wei Ying likes how the food tastes, he will probably be happy! And because Sunny helped cook the food, it will be almost like she has made him happy! That's good, she thinks. Much better than making someone upset.

Frankly, that radiant smile is an apt reflection of how Lan Wangji often feels when he thinks of caring for Wei Ying. He doesn't smile again in return, but his eyes are still soft and warm. "We will need to exercise patience now," he warns Sunny, fetching the bowl into which he strained the liquid that was left over from cooking the beef. He pours it into the wok until most of the contents are covered.

Sunny watches, making a mental note of everything.

"First, we must wait for this to come to a boil," he says. "Stir again, once more."

She stirs again, once more.

"Thank you." With gratitude for his incredibly deft helper, Lan Wangji slides an iron lid over the wok, not quite covering it entirely. "This will make the meat more tender."

Sunny assumes most people must prefer that, from how Lan Wangji said it. She cannot relate, but she appreciates the lesson nonetheless.

Before long, the liquid within the wok comes to a boil. Lan Wangji makes a little two-fingered gesture at the flame of the burner, and it obediently diminishes itself to a lower heat.

Sunny repeats the gesture, expecting something to happen. When it doesn’t, she says simply, “Broke.”

Lan Wangji is irresistibly endeared by the imitation, but he says, without hesitation, "No. That was cultivation. Most cannot use qi that way."

"...Bafly?" She asks. Crowley never did quite get around to explaining that one. They must have gotten distracted by something else that was, undoubtedly, more important, such as looking at flowers, or taking a nap, or that thread ending and being safely archived.

No one could possibly have a better excuse for not having read the cultivation pamphlet. Hoping that the question means something generally like what he imagines it to mean, Lan Wangji endeavors to answer. "Qi is the energy that sustains all life. It is in everything. Cultivation is the practice of gathering and refining that qi." He touches a hand to his abdomen. "I have formed a golden core, here, that serves as a store of qi. It prolongs my life and enables some feats that those with lower or no cultivation cannot accomplish."

“Wow!” Sunny says after listening intently. She is very proud of her close friend Lan Wangji for having eaten gold! Sunny now has something to aspire to. She may have slightly misunderstood his story.

He gives her another small flicker of a smile. "It is hard work that requires daily discipline."

She nods, agreeing. It certainly would be a lot of work to bite up gold into pieces you can swallow.

They are in perfect accord, naturally. Because he is fond, which makes him inclined to fuss solemnly over the person who has earned his fondness, Lan Wangji reaches to smooth back a wisp of Sunny's hair. "I need to clean up. Would you like to sit there or return to the floor?"

Sunny thinks this over, and decides the floor is the best place to be now. She turns and attempts to climb down on her own.

Promptly, Lan Wangji catches her with both hands and sets her safely on the floor. There are far too many people here who would never forgive him if he allowed Sunny to come to harm, himself included.

"Oh. Thanks." She tells him, then goes to sit on the floor out of the way, resting her back against the cabinets. She could probably fit inside the cabinets. She decides to try, and turns around to open one.

Unfortunately it seems the mansion spirits have installed child locks on the cabinets in this kitchen. Sunny resumes sitting.

"You're welcome," Lan Wangji says to her. He watches her attempts with interest. "Is there something you want from those cabinets?"

She points to herself, then points to the cabinet. "In," she says. By 'in' she does not mean, "putting babies in cabinets is the stylish thing to do right now", though it is very possible that Esmé Squalor would think so. However, this typist does not have any evidence to point either way for that. It is just as likely that putting babies in cabinets is currently out. What Sunny means by 'in' is that she wants to see if she can fit inside the cabinet. It's a science experiment.

Lan Wangji is a man of many skills and great restraint. He is not, however, skilled at saying no to small children, nor does his restraint extend there. As such, he crouches and opens the cabinet for Sunny.

"Thanks," she says as she climbs inside and sits. She is glad her hypothesis was correct.

"You will outgrow that before long," Lan Wangji tells her. It is a bittersweet sentiment, come to think of it.

She would outgrow it sooner if Magnu thought she was more plant-like. "Big!" she tells Lan Wangji, stretching her arms up where the bump against the "ceiling" of the cabinet.

The cleanup has not been forgotten, nor has the beef simmering on the stove, but Lan Wangji does drop into a kneeling position on the floor of the kitchen so that he is close to level with Sunny where she's so neatly tucked into the cabinet. "Very big," he agrees, indulgent. "I brought a child home once. He grew quickly."

Sunny’s head tilts to the side. “Daddy?” she asks, pointing at Lan Wangji. What she means is, “When you say you brought home a child, do you mean from the hospital? Are you a father?”

Lan Wangji looks at her with an open expression that is the result of how caught off-guard he is. "No. A-Yuan had lost his family."

“Orphan,” Sunny says quietly.

"Mn." He studies her face. She is so young that it has notably changed a little even in the short time that she has been at this mansion. "You, too?"

It is true that her face has changed in the few months she has been at the mansion. Children the same age as Sunny grow very quickly. “Grow very quickly” is a phrase which here means, “get new icons every so often”.

At Lan Wangji’s question Sunny nods. “Fire,” she explains.

It's hardly a shock. If Sunny had living parents, ones who loved her, surely the mansion would not have taken her from them. It sends a little pang through Lan Wangji anyway. "A-Yuan's parents were lost in a war," he says quietly, "but he had aunts and uncles to care for him. When he lost them, too, I found him."

“Violet Klaus lost,” Sunny says, explaining further. They must be lost, otherwise they would have followed her here by now.

Lan Wangji can't determine who Violet and Klaus are in relation to Sunny, but if they represent another loss she has suffered, he doesn't need to know more. She also can't possibly remain in the cabinet as she thinks of this. Gentle, he scoops her out and into his arms.

Sunny rests her head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. She wonders what her siblings are doing. Are they still at the village where Mr. Poe was sending them when Sunny woke up here? Or have they had to move on, as they have had to move on from every guardian so far? Did they ever find the Quagmire triplets? Are they looking for Sunny? Was the name V.F.D. another red herring, and the village was actually so lovely that Violet and Klaus chose to stay there instead of find a way to follow Sunny here? As great as things are here, and regardless of however many new friends she has made, if she could go back to her siblings she would. Why aren’t they following her here? Surely Violet could invent a way to find her, or maybe Klaus has read something about it in a book. Did Count Olaf finally get them? Sunny can’t think about that scenario, as she finds it is even worse than the scenario where they simply do not wish to come get her.

Lan Wangji kneels where he is for a moment, holding her. She's startlingly warm, just the way he remembers the shocking warmth of A-Yuan wrapped around his leg. He sets a hand at her head, smoothing the growing wisps of her light hair, then shuts the cabinet and stands. He shuffles her weight a little so that she's tucked against him with one arm and can stay with him as he begins tidying the kitchen with the other hand. Her weight barely registers -- he can carry his entire grown husband with one arm. A baby is no trouble.

Sunny is certainly smaller than a grown husband, and similarly smaller than a grown spouse of any gender. In fact, there are few people who she is not smaller than.

She rides along as Lan Wangji cleans, still resting on his shoulder. She wishes Violet and Klaus knew how great it is here, so they would want to come as well. Klaus would love to spend time in the library. She as a feeling he would set up a little bed inside it and just never leave the room. Violet would enjoy how the closets and cabinets and drawers and boxes and dressers here seem to have whatever it is you are looking for. She could invent anything she wanted, because she would always have the correct tools and supplies needed. The best part though would be that none of them would need to worry about Count Olaf or his associates ever again, because Crowley said so, and Crowley is much more trustworthy than Mr Poe or anyone else back home. The only person who has shown up here with any sort of tattoo on their ankles was that nice man who wanted to look at butterflies. Sunny cannot imagine Count Olaf ever caring about a butterfly, unless that butterfly was the heir to an enormous fortune, and Count Olaf was caring about kidnapping it in an attempt to steal said enormous fortune.

Sunny is a soothing presence even in her silence, a tidy bundle of life and potential, trusting him enough -- something that seems exceptionally precious after all her losses -- to put her cheek on his shoulder and let him hold her. Having only one hand available lengthens the cleaning process, but Lan Wangji doesn't mind it. He certainly minds it less than he would mind disturbing her. Her parents are gone; she has been taken from her home. The mansion has a collective responsibility to her.

In time, he's tidied the kitchen to his satisfaction. The room is fragrant with the slow-simmering beef, spiced and spicy in equal measure, and Lan Wangji sets Sunny carefully atop the counter again. "We have yet to add one thing to this dish," he says, meeting her gaze with solemnity.

Sunny perks up when Lan Wangji speaks to her again. "Plate?" she asks, assuming the one thing left to add is something to serve it on. She can remember once, not too long before her parents perished in a terrible fire, when all five of the Baudelaires went out to eat at a restaurant, and her father's food was served on a sizzling hot cast iron pan, but normally she thinks food is added to a plate or bowl before serving. If you are curious, Sunny ate a mixture of rice and refried beans that she picked up with her hands out of a tiny bowl her mother made sure did not fall off the table.

Although this expression doesn't constitute a smile, it is almost overtly indulgent. "Noodles," he corrects her.

"No plate?"

"No plate. We will need a bowl when it is finished."

Sunny stands up on the counter so she can open a cabinet and pulls out a bear bowl and offers it to Lan Wangji. "Later," she says, meaning "for later".

He takes it, of course, without hesitation, and examines the design with a serious expression still in place. "Thank you. Wei Ying will enjoy this."

"Welcome," she replies with a grin, proud to have been able to assist.

For the time being, he sets it to the side. From the refrigerator, he retrieves a quantity of fresh rice noodles, the work of the previous morning, and shows them to Sunny. "This is what I meant." With no further ceremony, he uncovers the wok and coaxes the noodles into the broth with the tip of a chopstick.

"Sketti," Sunny says, knowledgably, while watching.

"Rice noodles," Lan Wangji corrects her -- politely, so that she'll know what is going into the dish. He gives it all a stir.

"Oh. Eyesnudels."

"Precisely." The noodles will take very little time to cook, as fresh as they are. "Will you help me deliver dinner to Wei Ying?"

"Uh huh!"

Her enthusiasm earns her a small, sincere smile. With a gesture, Lan Wangji snuffs the burner entirely, and then he begins dishing beef, noodles, and broth into the bear-patterned bowl Sunny so thoughtfully provided.

Sunny watches closely.

He finds a serving tray and arrays everything neatly: the bowl with the food, a spoon and a pair of chopsticks, a cup and a jar of Emperor's Smile that he retrieves from the liquor cabinet adjacent to the kitchen. It will all be askew shortly, and Wei Ying won't put half as much care into returning everything to its place; he doesn't care. Once everything is arranged, he scoops up Sunny with one arm and balances the food across his free hand.

Sunny is very impressed by his balancing skills, and she wonders if he has ever worked as a server in a restaurant. They all seem to be very skilled at carrying trays with plates and cups and bowls on top, usually without even spilling anything. She doesn't know if that is a prerequisite to the job, or if it is something most people pick up after training. She didn't need to balance trays of plates and cups and bowls when she has had jobs.

Wei Ying will be just expecting him. He may be growing bored with his work, or freshly inside from the woods and smelling of spring growth, or reclining on their bed with his hair around his shoulders and a lurid novel in his hands, a dozen teasing phrases of half-veiled love ready on his tongue. Lan Wangji knows that he will be delighted to see Sunny alongside his dinner, no matter what is occupying his time this evening. "Thank you for your help," he tells Sunny, and then he makes his way to the stairs, all of these precious things held with care.

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?

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

Sunny gasps. "Big!"

Edited 2024-07-22 19:52 (UTC)

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.

"Hi!" She says, excited. This is the biggest reptile she has ever met! She wishes that Uncle Monty were here, he would definitely love it. Unfortunately, Uncle Monty tragically passed away - a phrase which here means, "was brutally murdered" - several months ago.

"Sunny!" Sunny introduces herself, signing Sunny! as she does so.

“You are very small, Sunny,” Temeraire says seriously. “I shall endeavour to not squash you; but you must be careful.” Unfortunately for her, dragons do not know American Sign Language; but he does look curiously at her hands. “I am Temeraire.”

“Bite?” Sunny asks, which here means, “May I bite your tail, or perhaps one of those long things coming off the side of your face?”

Sunny does not know what those long things coming off the side of his face are for, so she surely should be excused for asking such a question.

Temeraire scrunches up his snout a bit, thoughtful. "It may hurt your teeth," he says doubtfully. "I have scales, you see, and they are quite tough."

“Teeth strong,” Sunny explains, before waddling over to Temeraire’s tail and biting down on part of it.

It is, as he said, quite tough. Sunny's teeth, exceedingly sharp though they may be, thankfully do not do any damage to it; though he is very careful to keep still. "Do you like to bite?" he asks, curious. Perhaps it is a common thing among small humans.

"Yes," she responds, but as her mouth is currently full of dragon, it sounds more like "Eff".

"Oh." He stretches to peer a little closer at her. "I am not very familiar with small humans, I am sorry," Temeraire says. "I do not think I was ever quite so small for so long."

Sunny is not very familiar with dragons, so she thinks they are even. "Fly?" she asks, wondering if he can fly. He has wings, but she knows that not everything with wings can fly. Ostriches have wings, but are too big to fly. Large buildings have wings, but are also too big to fly.

"Oh, yes, but I think perhaps you ought to do that with an adult present," he says kindly. "My scales can be very slippery, and if I am not harnessed it is difficult for people to hold on if they are not accustomed to it."

Sunny wasn't even considering that she would be able to fly on him, she was just curious about if this big reptile could fly. Now she is excited. "Kay!" she says, making a mental note to drag someone here with her next time.

Of course he would offer the tiny human a ride. But only with proper supervision. She is very small, he might not even notice if she were to fall off. "I cannot breathe fire," he says, half-apologetic. "Most people expect me to."

Edited (html grrrr) 2024-08-21 22:22 (UTC)

"Good."

"Oh, you do not like fire? Then I suppose we are in luck."

"Arson," she explains sadly.

"Oh." He falls silent for a moment, remembering all too well the loss of the Allegiance and the fire that spread too quickly, taking her to the bottom of the sea. "I am very sorry, young miss."

Sunny doesn't say anything. She is thinking about when she and her siblings found the tunnel that led to the remains of their old house.

He nudges her carefully with his snout, to hopefully cheer her up. Or at least try and reassure her.

It does work, and she giggles, patting Temeraire's nose with her little hands

He will continue nuzzling at her then, very careful to not move too quickly.

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.

Edited 2024-07-23 01:48 (UTC)

"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.

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

Sunny grins. She has heard a lot about Galahad from Magnu before, and is excited to finally meet him. "Esh," she says, signing yes at the same time.

"We could go together." He's remained shyly expressionless so far, not breaking eye contact with her.

"Okay!" She thinks that sounds like fun. She signs, Galahad you Magnus brother, making sure she gets the sign for 'brother' correct this time.

"Do you want to walk?" Magnus brother, he agrees.

“Esh,” she says, at the same time she signs Yes!. “Sunny walk! Sunny strong!” she explains, a phrase which here means, “I would like to walk, my legs have recently become strong enough for me to do so, I would like to use them today”.

"Okay," he says, signing along. "I think he's at camp right now."

Magnu taught Sunny how to say, Let's go! in sign language, so she signs that now, then holds her hand up for Galahad to take as they walk. It is safer for people Sunny's size to hold someone's hand while they walk, and even though there is not a parking lot full of cars or a street full of cars or a sidewalk full of cars for her to need to cross to get to Magnu's camp, she still thinks it would be nice to hold Galahad's hand.

Galahad immediately takes her hand, pleased by how well it fits in his. He's never been around a baby before, but so far she seems like anyone else, only small. As they walk towards the camp he says, only a little shy, "Magnus says you play in our old room. Do you like the way I painted it?"

Sunny gasps. She did not realize that Galahad painted the flowers. She smiles and excitedly says, "Flowers!" which here means, "Oh yes! I love the flowers! They are quite beautiful!" She signs Pretty! at the same time, a sign which here means, "Oh yes! I love the flowers! They are quite beautiful!"

"I used a field guide. They're all flowers from Boston," he explains. "That's where Magnus used to live."

Sunny thinks that 'Boston' sounds familiar. Perhaps she heard it mentioned somewhere before. Maybe Magnu told her that's where he is from. Maybe in a film adaptation of her life that is the city she is also from, and she heard it mentioned there. Maybe it's a famous place and she heard it mentioned as a result of that. Maybe none and/or all of the above.

"Book?" She asks, which here means, "A field guide is a type of book, right? My brother likes to read books to find out information that is helpful."

"It's a book about what kinds of things you can find somewhere. There are field guides about different kinds of animals and plants. I'm collecting field guides about arthropods and insects. So I can identify the ones that are here."

Sunny signs Bug. She had Magnu teach her that sign one day when a bug got on her shirt while they were playing outside. She wonders if Galahad is a bug scientist, like how Uncle Monty was a herpetologist. She hopes nobody poisons Galahad and blames one of his bugs for the murder.

Galahad nods seriously and signs bug as well, touching his nose and wiggling his fingers.

Sunny is pleased they have come to such a deep understanding. She knew that meeting one of Magnu's friends would go over well. She then signs Sunny help Galahad find bug? which she thinks might be one of the longest sentences she has ever put together. She thinks that, as she is closer to the ground, where most bugs live, she might have an easier time finding them.

"Yes. I would like that," Galahad says, in his usual serious way. "I can give you a jar."

"Okay!" She's excited to hunt for bugs.

He has special jars in his messenger bag, with squares cut out of the lids and covered over with mesh so that air can get in and out. "You can only put one kind of insect in a jar, because otherwise they might try to eat each other," he explains.

“Bite,” she says with a little nod, committing that fact to memory. One bug per jar.

"Sometimes. Some insects have a proboscis that can pierce another insect's body and draw out its insides like a drink."

"Probos..." Sunny tries to repeat. She signs bug again, thinking of her fingers in the sign as very long teeth that can bite into something and slurp it up like a straw. "Gross!" she giggles. She then, very helpfully, adds, "kah ay-tay moh-moh," in a quiet voice. This means, "I once recently bit a terrifying monster to death. I didn't drink the insides though, the insides were mostly wires and machine parts."

"Will you please say that again when we find Magnus? I don't know all of your language yet," Galahad says seriously.

“Okay!” She says with a nod. She would have signed the story, but there were a lot of words she doesn’t know yet.

"Thank you." He is pleased that they're communicating so well thus far. "I can help teach you sign language if you would like."

She hops a little, excited. Please, she signs. Magnu is a great teacher, but he has many activities he has to attend to throughout the day, such as his secret sword time with Lancelot, spending time with Alex, growing all of the various plant body parts, and lots of other things too. If Sunny has two teachers she can maybe learn twice as fast. It is frustrating when people don't understand her.

"I know a lot." This is both a fact and something he's proud of, although his voice is inexpressive enough that his pride might be hard to detect. "Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed I can't speak, but I can sign." He's still holding her hand, so he can't sign all of these words, but the ones he can do one-handed he signs along as he speaks. "I like being able to talk this way."

Sunny wishes she knew how to sign ‘I like signing because most people cannot understand most of what I say’ but as she does not know all of those words, she simply nods in response to Galahad.

"I'll teach you everything that I know. Do you know the alphabet yet?" They're almost to Magnus' camp.

She starts signing through the alphabet, but she does get many of the letters mixed up, as she is not even proficient with the written alphabet yet.

"It's good that you've started. We'll practice."

"Okay!"

"Is that Sunny I hear?" Magnus calls. He's perched on a tree limb at the far edge of camp, reading -- comics, this time, so he can refresh his memory enough to make decent feminist recommendations to Tally -- and he lets himself fall back so that he's swinging upside down by his knees in a sort of whole-body peekaboo. From upside-down, with delight, he sees -- "and Galahad?! This is my lucky day. Sup?"

Edited 2024-07-28 17:15 (UTC)

Solemnly, "To sup is to take drink or liquid food by sips or spoonfuls."

Sunny appreciates the definition, but it does make her miss Klaus and Violet in a terrible, stabbing pain sort of way. If you have ever been in a situation where, for whatever reason, you are no longer able to see or talk with or visit someone you love very dearly, you might know what that feeling is like. I do hope that, unlike what Sunny Baudelaire is currently going through, you have never been whisked away to an alternate dimension, separated from the few remaining family members you still have, with no warning or explanation, but if you have been in that situation before, I offer my most sincerest apologies, and hope that you are at least enjoying the lack of capitalism and unlimited clothing options.

Sunny does her best to ignore the terrible, stabbing pain of missing her siblings, and instead waves up at Magnu. "Friend," she tells him, which here means, "Galahad and I ran into one another, and now I am going to help him find bugs".

Magnus can tell that Sunny is having a little sad moment, so he drops out of the tree and sweeps her up in a big old welcome hug. Then he gives Galahad one, too, for good measure. "You're going on a bug hunt?"

Galahad hugs back tightly. "Sunny is very fast. Do you want to come with us?"

Sunny little. Bug little. she signs, not sure if it makes any sense. For good measure, she crouches down and holds her hand above the ground, as that is where the bugs live.

"You will be able to see them better," says Magnus, encouragingly. "I'm down." Real bug hunt or dragonfly room? he signs, and then pauses. "Sunny, do you want a snack first? Or Galahad?"

Dragonfly room, immediately. He's been wanting to go back with his sketchbook, and it's fine for Sunny to try to catch some of them.

“Puwdestee,” Sunny says, which here means, “I’m not terribly hungry right now, so unless either of you needs a snack I should be fine without it.”

Magnus translates this for Galahad, and then puts a bag of pretzels in his backpack anyway. And a juice box. And an apple and some carrots. He's learned that it's best to be prepared in case the hunger situation changes. He doesn't bother asking Sunny if she has a fresh diaper; they've worked out a signal for him to stumble across someone who can handle that if she doesn't and she hasn't given it. "Okay," he says. "You wanna walk or you wanna piggyback?" He purses his lips, mock-thoughtful, and winks at Galahad. "You could teach Galahad how to give you a piggyback ride."

"You could."

"Yeah!" She runs behind Galahad and starts reaching up, as if she's planning on just climbing his back by herself.

Magnus catches each of their eyes in turn. "Are you asking Galahad to crouch down so that you can climb up?" he asks, signing as he talks.

The translation is helpful. It reminds Galahad of how much easier it is to understand what someone is saying when they sign it, as if being able to see the words instead of merely hearing them makes them quicker to resolve from sounds to language.

He kneels down on the ground at a more accessible Sunny height.

"Oh thanks," she says as she climbs on Galahad's back, her arms wrapping around his neck to hold on with.

Magnus watches for a moment, wibbling, as his best friends get situated. Then he grins and says, "Last one to the dragonfly room is a rotten egg!" and takes off running (in very slow motion) back toward the Mansion.

Galahad's endurance has built up a fair amount under Lan Wangji's training, but he's never going to be as fast or unflagging as Magnus is. On the other hand, Magnus is running in very slow motion. Galahad keeps pace for now.

Sunny is very happy. She hasn't often had friends, and historically speaking her friends tend to get kidnapped by Count Olaf, which does cut down on the amount of time you can spend hanging out with them, among other things. So getting to hang out with both her best friend Magnu and her new friend Galahad is great!

Magnus wants Sunny to win the race, obviously, so he keeps an eye on Galahad and maintains a pace that is plausibly -- to Sunny, at least; probably not to Galahad -- between one and three paces behind Galahad's the entire way to the Mansion -- though he does pull ahead once or twice, just to make it feel like a real nailbiter. (He's held Sunny a bunch. He's pretty sure Galahad can manage this, even without his, like, superpowers or whatever. But he keeps an eye out just in case.) It's harder, in the halls, since there's doors to open and stairs to navigate, but he tries his best.

Edited 2024-08-07 02:45 (UTC)

It takes him a little while to understand exactly what's going on -- he almost asks why Magnus is running so slowly before he realizes -- but once he gets it he also tries to lend some verisimilitude to his efforts, speeding up whenever Magnus starts to pull ahead.

Sunny isn't heavy, but she's weight he's not used to, and he's definitely starting to flag by the time they're clattering down the stairs.

"Go go go!" Sunny giggles, cheering Galahad on.

Luckily, there's not much farther to go. Magnus makes a great show of almost getting his hand on the door first, and then lets Galahad take the win in the last segment. It's a good thing he packed all those snacks... he's getting the sense that Galahad deserves a juice box.

As soon as the door is opened, though, he sighs, "I guess I'm a stinky rotten egg," sounding very aggrieved indeed, and then says, "Sunny, cover your eyes while we get situated in here? So that it's, like, a surprise or whatever."

"Very stinky," Galahad says, in his most solemn voice, although he definitely sounds winded.

Edited 2024-08-07 15:31 (UTC)

"Shoo," Sunny says, covering her nose with a giggle. She then very carefully covers her eyes.

Magnus signs, Want me to take her? Do you need something to drink? Some summer? It's too many questions, and he knows it, but Sunny won't keep her eyes closed for very long, and he wants her to be surprised and delighted by all the bugs in here. Maybe by setting her down in the middle of gently-sloping hillside, so they can rise up around her when she opens her eyes.

He tells all this to Galahad, too, fingers flying quickly.

It's too many questions, but Galahad understands that the important part is pressing through to the surprise. He can answer questions after.

He has one hand behind himself to support Sunny's body, but he signs back open door with the other.

Sunny doesn't know any of this is going on, of course, as she has her eyes covered and cannot see.

Magnus holds the door open for Galahad, and then follows him inside the room. ("Room" is a word which here refers to a mid-sized open field with a gently sloping hill, a small pond at its base with flowers crowding down to its edges and frogs leaping about, and so many insects, especially dragonflies. The sun is shining brightly and, once more, it feels like Frey might show up at any minute.)

Edited 2024-08-08 05:31 (UTC)

Very, very gently, he sets Sunny down in the grass by the pond. Immediately dragonflies begin to settle onto her head; the air is noticeably warm and humid. A pickerel frog leaps next to her foot and sits there.

Galahad collapses to the grass beside her, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Something is tickling her, but she keeps her hands over her eyes anyway! "Asflaudge?" she asks, which here means, "Can I look yet?"

"On the count of three, okay?" Magnus says, quickly signing to Galahad, too much? Sorry. She's tiny I thought it'd be fine. Need anything? and then slowly saying "One... Two... Two and a half... Two and three quarters..."

Edited 2024-08-09 03:23 (UTC)

It's okay, he signs back, equally quick. I will drink after she sees. He's winded, but it will be worth it if the surprise delights her.

Sunny cannot count very high, but she does know how to count to at least three. There are three Baudelaire orphans. She is one of them. There are two Quagmire triplets, but there used to be three. She is not one of them. Sunny might be a very patient young lady, but she is still roughly 20 or so months old, so her patience only extends so far.

"Three!" she finally shouts, and uncovers her eyes. She gasps as she looks around. "Wow!" she says, which here means, "Wow!"

Magnus grins. He doesn't ruffle Sunny's hair even though he kind of wants to, because he doesn't want to upset the dragonflies, and instead opens his backpack and tosses Galahad a juice box. "You like?" he asks Sunny. "How many bugs do you see?"

Galahad takes it gratefully. He finds the strong taste of apple juice mildly unpleasant, but right now, when he's so thirsty, it's completely acceptable. He's watching Sunny closely, and when she gasps he smiles -- without actually smiling, but he's very pleased.

Sunny tries to count the bugs she can see, but she loses track quickly, and instead just holds up a number of her fingers.

"Yeah, definitely at least eight," Magnus says, grinning as a dragonfly alights on his nose.

"There are four or five genera," Galahad tells her, in his serious way. "At least. Those are different kinds. They shouldn't all be here together, so I think this place is like the mansion."

Sunny smiles at Galahad. He's reminding her of Klaus again. She thinks that whenever Klaus shows up she should introduce them, as they will likely get along very well. "Klaus ekajorlaj friend," she says, which here means, "Whenever my brother Klaus shows up I'm going to introduce you two, I think you will likely get along very well". She then looks at Magnu expectantly, hoping he will translate. She would have signed it herself, but she doesn't know all of those words just yet.

Magnus translates it word for word, signing each word as he does. Then he adds, "Klaus likes to read a lot and know a lot of things," as clarification.

"I would like to meet him. I have liked meeting new people here."

"Me too!" she says, which here means, "Me too!"

"Sunny has great opinions about the people here," Magnus informs Galahad. "She keeps me updated." To Sunny, he adds, "Galahad likes to keep Claudius updated on people here, too^*."

*Obviously he knows this happens because he's the secondary beneficiary in many (but not all) circumstances... but does he really grasp the whole scope of it? Who can say!

"What do you know?" Galahad asks. This is actually very important -- anything she knows about people is valuable information that Claudius might not already have.

"Who?" she asks, meaning, "About who, specifically?" She knows a lot of things, she isn't sure where to start.

Galahad considers. "What do you know about Grantaire?"

Because this thread is happening further down the page, we can deduce she has already met Grantaire and had her entire adventure with him, so she is, of course, a resident expert on Dr Grantaire now. "Helper," she begins, signing help at the same time. She thinks real hard about words, and says, "Aire..." she can't remember how to say 'said', so she instead just pitches her voice down for this next part. "no helper." She then signs fake! big help!

She sighs and turns to Magnu to ask, "Quashalope?" This is a word which here means, "Did that make sense? I was trying. Will you tell him about the room with the bouncy house and the big slide?" She surely has made a point to tell Magnu about that by now.

Edited 2024-08-12 19:16 (UTC)

"You did a great job explaining," Magnus assures Sunny, carefully flicking a dragonfly away when it tries to land what he thinks might be too close to her eyes. Then he turns to Galahad.

"They found a room," he explains, faithfully. "Kind of like the playground, but everything is made out of inflatables... they're, like, structures full of air that you can bounce on like a trampoline. Actually, Sunny, you should show us where that is sometime. Maybe after you're done studying all the bugs here? Anyway, Grantaire did a great job helping her climb and slide and get snacks and stuff."

Claudius will absolutely like knowing that Grantaire is good with babies. "Thank you," he says. "Crowley and Aziraphale?"

Sunny grins and goes on a long rant about how much fun Crowley is, and how he can understand her like Magnu can, and he's sometimes a snake, which is clearly the best animal, and how he likes to kidnap her, but it's just play kidnap and not real kidnap, and they go look at plants and he tells her their names and all about which ones are doing a bad job at being plants and which ones are the gossipiest and which ones she should yell, 'raaaa!' to, and then she remembers that Galahad doesn't know how to understand her when she's talking so she stops and signs fun, nice, love, snake.

Because he also asked about Aziraphale, she adds, "Zirfale nice!"

Luckily for all parties involved, Magnus has been dutifully signing along with her story. "Which plants do you yell 'raaaa' to?" he asks, curious.

Galahad nods as he follows along -- always, always serious, like a young Lan Wangji. This is also information that Claudius will enjoy hearing, and he's so focused on that that it takes him a little while to realize that this is a side of Crowley that's fascinating in its mystery. His and Crowley's interactions have been... fraught, historically, and the uneasy truce they have now is due to Galahad burning someone to death for him.

"Is Crowley nice?" he asks.

Sunny is part of the way through listing out which plants she yelled at most recently, by their given names, when Galahad asks his question. She smiles her widest smile and says, "Yes!" Crowley is very nice, she thinks. One of the nicest people here.

Magnus pauses in his signing Sunny's explanations when a dragonfly alights on his finger. He grins, and slowly moves his hand so that Sunny and Galahad can see it better.

"I hurt Crowley," Galahad says, watching the dragonfly rest. Its thick body is as glossy and substantial as something cut from emerald; by contrast the wings are like vellum. "I was angry. And afraid." He spreads his fingers wide and makes a frightened face.

Sunny is studying the dragonfly. "Studying" is a word which here means, "staring at it entirely too closely and going a little cross-eyed as a result". But when Galahad stars speaking she looks up, confused. "Accident?" she asks.

That's an excellent question. He doesn't know if it was an accident. Partly because that memory is Damien's, certainly, but also because-- he was so angry and disappointed in that moment, angry because he thought he was trapped as a person Claudius could never love, because the only memories Crowley had restored were the ones that cemented him as a thing created for violence. He hadn't known he could catch fire, that he could immolate Crowley and the kitchen together, burn everything down and be spared himself, but he still did it.

"I don't know," he tells her honestly.

"Hypnotized?" she asks. Klaus was hypnotized one time, and did things he wouldn't ordinarily have done.

"No. I wanted him to return my memories, and he didn't know how."

Sunny thinks she is missing some critical pieces of information for this story to make any sort of narrative sense to her. She would say as much, but that seems a silly thing to make Magnu translate, so instead she just asks, "Say sorry Colee?" which is her way of asking, "Did you tell Crowley you were sorry?" Whatever happened doesn't seem to be something Crowley is still hurt from; he seemed to be doing fine the last time Sunny saw him. There weren't any bandaids anywhere at least. If he has apologized then maybe it's all okay now! Galahad doesn't seem like the kind of person who would purposefully harm someone and feel no remorse. "Feel no remorse" is a phrase which here means, "not apologize".

Magnus starts unpacking snacks from his backpack, listening, ready to interject if anyone asks for it.

"He said he forgave me, and then I protected him from something that wanted to hurt him. I think that mattered."

"Oh," Sunny smiles. "That's okay!" If Crowley forgave Galahad, and Galahad doesn't want to do that again, and Crowley isn't still hurt, and Galahad even protected Crowley from something else, then it seems like everyone's in a good spot here.

"Did you know he can talk to plants?"

"Is that why he likes the orchids?"

"Gossip," Sunny says, helpfully.

Magnus glances over. "Does he tell you the gossip?"

"Do the orchids gossip?" This is vital Claudius intelligence.

"Uh huh," she says to answer Galahad's question, and then, "Some," she says to answer Magnu's question.

"Can you tell us the gossip?"

Galahad nods seriously.

“Nigale daihare,” she says, which here means, “A bird dyed his hair, but I don’t know what bird. I also didn’t think birds had hair.” It is entirely possible this has gone through several levels of the telephone game before this moment.

"A bird dyed his own hair?"

"Crowley dyed Claudius' hair."

Sunny shrugs. "Dunno," she says. She is, after all, just going on what the flowers said.

Magnus's head swivels to look at Galahad. "He did?" (He's definitely picturing a box dye moment.)

"Indigo. During Dark."

Sunny wonders if everyone is dying their hair these days. She was mostly asleep, but when she and Auntie Sissy met that Thursday person, she's pretty sure Sissy said something about Thursday's hair being dyed too. Sunny reaches up and touches her hair and says, "Die?" which means, "If I were going to dye my hair, what color should I pick?"

"Red, like Crowley?" Magnus suggests, after translating the question for Galahad.

Galahad considers the question seriously, and then is struck by the image of Sunny like the mandrakes he's seen in some of Claudius' alchemical books, a little body beneath a great leafy protrusion. He looks at her tiny sprout of hair, right on the top of her head.

"Green," he says decisively.

"Flower!" Sunny says, also thinking about leaves when Galahad suggests green. She turns to Magnu and puts her hands on her hips and says, "Grow!" then giggles, because she's just being silly.

Magnus clasps his hands to his heart and does a dramatic flop backwards into the grass. "I would if I could, Sunny, you know that."

"Perhaps you aren't trying hard enough," Galahad says, in the very grave tone he uses when he's teasing Magnus.

Sunny gasps, then grins, elated. "Elated" is a word which here means, "happy to have found someone on her side of the argument". "No try!" she explains, because Magnu didn't even try at all.

"Yeah, because what if I grew you wrong," Magnus says, sitting up, eyes wide for effect. "Like... what if you didn't grow... but a tail did!!"

"We could cut a hole for a tail in her clothes. Would you like a tail?" to Sunny.

Sunny thinks this over, then nods. Szari has a tail and seems to enjoy it. Evil Twin Sagramore had a tail some of the time. She wiggles her butt side to side, like she's wagging a tail.

Well, that backfired. "Or it could be worse than a tail," Magnus says, apologetically.

A brief contemplation of what could be worse than a tail. "An ovipositor."

"Huh?"

"I also don't know what that is."

"It is a tube-like organ used for laying eggs. For many species it is simply used to attach eggs to a surface, but in parasitic species, primarily wasps, it is also a piercing organ used to deposit eggs within a host."

Sunny is confused. "Scramble?" she asks, as 'eggs' make her think of a tasty breakfast food and not part of the reproductive cycle.

Meanwhile Magnus's face goes through about twenty different expressions as he parses this, including, but not limited to, fascination, confusion, and revulsion. "So like the svartalfs and Ymir," he decides, still fascinhorrifietated. "Not a scramble. Sunny, do you want a, like, egg appendage?"

"The svartalfs and Ymir?"

"No egg!" she says, now imagining eggs coming out of her shoulders instead of arms.

"I guess it's not exactly the same, but all dwarves are descended from the, um. Maggots that chewed through the first ice jotunn after he, um. You know. And maggots come from, like, fly eggs right?"

Galahad tries to imagine anything but maggots coming from fly eggs -- the idea of tiny dwarves hatching out instead strikes him as something Susan would hate. "No eggs," he tells Sunny firmly. "That's why Magnus can't grow you."

Sunny pouts. Have any of the flowers ever gotten eggs from Magnu? Probably not. This sounds like baseless conjecture to her, but she won't keep arguing it. For now, anyway.

"Sorry, Sunny," Magnus says, ruffling her little ponytail and dislodging more dragonflies in the process. "But you know what? Big people have a harder time making friends with all these bugs. Because of the, um, size difference." Go along with this, he mouths to Galahad over her head, and then adds, "So since you're still little, you can help us see the one we might miss otherwise. Because we're big."

Edited 2024-08-23 02:54 (UTC)

Galahad's best friend should remember that he's constitutionally incapable of lying! However, he says gamely, "You're closer to the ground."

She nods. That's what she's been saying all along! The ground is where a lot of bugs live, and since her eyes are closer to it she will be able to see them better. She wasn't anticipating so many flying bugs, but she should be able to see the ground ones pretty easily. She starts crawling around, on the hunt.

Obviously Magnus knows that Galahad can't lie, but he's doing a great job of bending the truth today for Sunny's benefit. Overcome with fondness, Magnus grins at his best friend, ruffles his hair, and then flops on his belly to watch Sunny crawl.

Galahad pulls his sketchbook out of his messenger bag and begins preserving the moment.

Sunny sees a bug, but it hops away before she can grab it. “Fast,” she says.

"If you move really slow and hold out your hand, sometimes they'll land on you," Magnus tells her.

"They do," Galahad says, because that is truthful.

She tries this method. Nothing happens for a long time, but eventually she spots a brightly colored worm nearby, so she scoots over to it. After a very, incredibly, super, unfathomably long amount of time -- a phrase which here means, "approximately 30 seconds" -- the worm crawls onto her fingers.

"Aaaaaaah," she says, not out of fear but out of a sense of not really knowing what to do at this point.

"Now you can look at it really close-up," Magnus tells her. "Or you can poke it very gently."

"If you hold it up for me I'll draw it."

She very carefully holds her hand up for Galahad to see. "Hair," she says, pointing first to the tendrils sticking up off the caterpillar's back, then to her own hair sticking straight up off her head.

"Yeah," Magnus laughs. "It's like you in caterpillar form."

Galahad isn't quick, but as he begins sketching he quickly, for him, gives the caterpillar Sunny's face.

It starts to crawl out of her hand and up her arm, and she doesn't know what to do about that!

"If you move your other hand onto your arm, it'll crawl onto that one," Magnus tells her, and flops closer so that he can demonstrate, letting the caterpillar climb onto his finger.

As soon as the caterpillar is on Magnu, Sunny puts her arm down. "Magnu keep," she says, because she didn't really like how it felt crawling around on her arm. She is still looking at it very closely though.

"You got it, boss." Magnus lifts his finger away from Sunny's arm, but keeps his hand close, so she can inspect it at her leisure.

He turns his sketchbook around so they can see the Sunny version of the caterpillar.

Sunny looks, then bursts into giggles. "Sunny!"

"Do you want us to build you a cocoon, Sunny?"

"A pupa."

"Huh?" She doesn't know what those things are.

"Do you know how caterpillars turn into butterflies?"

"Flie," she says, which here means, "They grow wings."

"Yeah... while they're in cocoons." He glances at Galahad. "Pupae?"

"Yes. That is the correct term."

"Want," Sunny says, because she decides she wants to be in a pupa cocoon. It's probably just pretend, but even if Magnu is going to somehow grow her some wings it would be nice for reaching things, so there's clearly no downsides to this.

"What are they made out of?" Magnus asks Galahad. "Like... goop?"

"The larval structures are broken down and the adult stages formed. I think they're made of the same thing as the imago. Tissues."

Sunny doesn't understand most of what Galahad is talking about, but she likes how much he sounds like Klaus. "Tishu," she repeats.

Magnus, trying to translate, says, "Body tissues, right? Not, like, Kleenex tissues."

"Yes." He pauses, and then says, "Goop," because insects are soft-bodied and goop actually is an evocative way to describe what is inside them.

Sunny giggles and says, “Eew!” in what can only be referred to as a delighted tone.

"Want us to squeeze you into goop, Sunny?" Magnus asks. It's something he will absolutely never do, but he is poised to tickle her.

"Weave her a silk cocoon."

"Goop! Goop!" she chants.

"We might have to go to Kade for the silk." If there's a teasing note to his voice, it's because he knows about Galahad's crush on the guy and Sunny's mistrust of him.

"Magnus can go," dispassionately.

Sunny makes a face at the mention of Kade. "No."

Magnus cackles. "You guys are funny." He pulls his hoodie out of his backpack. "How about this?"

Edited 2024-09-03 04:00 (UTC)

"If you pull the hood down."

"Uh huh!"

"Okay, little pupa, come over here," Magnus says. He waves some insects away from a patch of grass, then lays the hoodie out.

Galahad watches closely, preparing to sketch again.

Sunny flops over on top of the hoodie, then splays her arms and legs out. "Goop!"

"Goop," Magnus chants, flopping the hood over her face, zipping her up, and then tucking the arms carefully around her. "Goop, goop, goop."

"What will you metamorphize into?"

"Temerare!" she says from inside the hoodie. She knows that dragons are not bugs, they are reptiles, but she is also not a bug so she thinks she should be able to turn into whatever she wants. She kind of rolls around on the ground. This seems like the right vibe for being a pupa.

"Actual factual Temeraire, or a dragon of your own?" Magnus asks. She's loosening the sleeves, so he knots them, then - since her eyes are covered - signs to Galahad, Cute, right?. A pause, as he watches Sunny wriggle and Galahad sketch, and then he adds, Thanks for going along with the lying-adjacent stuff.

Edited 2024-09-06 01:46 (UTC)

It's okay. He gives Magnus a little smile. Cute. Scientifically inaccurate.

"Sunny dragon!" she says from inside the hoodie. "Raaaa!"

"Are you a fire-breathing dragon, a water dragon, or a lindworm dragon?" Magnus asks, and darts in to tickle the side of the dragon pupa.

Galahad is ready to draw whatever kind of dragon she is pupating into!

Sunny giggles when she is tickled, but this gives her time to consider her answer. She is definitely not a fire-breathing dragon, but she also doesn't know what a lindworm dragon is, so she settles on "Water!" She assumes a water dragon is similar to the regular kind, only instead of fire coming out of its mouth, water does. It could potentially work for a fire department, perhaps even as a volunteer. Volunteer Fire Departments put out fires, not start them, right? She will have to check later.

"It's good she's not a lindworm," Magnus confides to Galahad in tones that are meant to sound like he doesn't want Sunny to overhear (though he definitely does plan on her overhearing). "That means I don't have to fight her." He tickles her again.

"That is good. She would defeat you."

Sunny laughs. "Fight! Fight! Lindorm!"

"You look as wriggly as a lindworm, little dragon pupa," Magnus says, with one final tickle. "When are you gonna come out of your chrysalis and defeat me?"

"Strike him down," Galahad intones solemnly.

Sunny manages to wiggle out of the hoodie - she loses the bow holding her hair up in the process, so she takes a moment to shove her hair out of her eyes before she tackles Magnu, shouting, "Raaaaa!" in her breathy, toddler way as she does so.

Magnus gives a great shriek and lets Sunny's momentum bear him down to the grass. "Oh no," he cries. "You're too strong for me, Dragon Sunny. Galahad -- Galahad, help me."

"It's nature. Dragons eat people." Galahad has been reading so much about the food chain lately. "Once she's eaten most of you, other animals will take care of the rest. Wasps and carrion beetles. It's important for the ecosystem."

Sunny starts giggling and bites on Magnu's shoulder. She is careful not to bite too hard even though she's playing very excitedly.

Even if she did, it would be fine; Magnus is resilient and heals remarkably quickly. Still, he gives a great shrieking cry and falls -- carefully -- to the side, tumbling down and cradling her so that she doesn't go flying. "Ahhhhhhhh," he says. "The dragon... it's got me. It's eating me!!!! Tell Alex I loved him..."

"I will tell him."

"Alex next," Sunny says, though it might not be able to be understood because she still has a mouthful of Magnu Shoulder.

Magnus certainly can't hear or understand this; Magnus is being eaten alive by a dread dragon! He clutches his belly, trying to keep his guts from spilling out. The guts Sunny has gone nowhere near. She's just that powerful.

"You're going to devour Alex?"

“Uh huh!” She says, but then reconsiders. She quickly says, “No!” actually taking her mouth off of Magnu for this. “Alex dragon too!”

Magnus cracks one eye open. "Don't go to Alex," he says, voice tremulous. "She's a fierce lindworm, and knows so many effective ways to kill me dead even faster..."

"Alex and Sunny will join forces to destroy you."

"Destroy! Destroy!" Sunny starts chanting while sort of log-rolling across Magnu's torso.

Magnus gives a loud, anguished yell. "I'm being destroyed," he cries. "How can I ever fight back?"

Edited 2024-09-15 04:04 (UTC)

"You can't," flatly. "You must die."

Sunny keeps yelling out variations of "die!" and "raaa!" and "destroy!" and "murder!" as she rolls around on Magnu, occasionally biting.

Gods, Magnus loves Sunny so much he thinks he could cry about it. "Wait," says Magnus weakly, as if something is just occurring to him. "I just remembered... I'm really good at fighting dragons."

Then he flips over, tossing Sunny (very carefully) in the air, catching her gently, and proceeding to tickle her relentlessly.

"Alas, dragon," Galahad intones.

Sunny tries to play dead, but she's laughing too much from being tickled to do a very good job at it.

"I," proclaims Magnus, "am the dragon-slayer!"

For his pièce de résistance, he lifts Sunny's little t-shirt a few inches and blows a big raspberry against her tummy.

"Are you dead?" he asks Sunny.

She closes her eyes and says, “uh huh”, giggling the whole time.

Magnus laughs, then leans in close and stage-whispers to Sunny -- pitching his voice so Galahad can definitely hear, but Sunny will think he can't -- "Galahad's turn?"

He widens his eyes expressively, the way you're supposed to when you make the hand signs for surprise or horror.

Sunny jumps up, yells, "GHOST!" and then goes to tackle Galahad.

Sunny leaping at Galahad while bundled in Magnus's hoodie is the cutest thing Magnus has ever seen in his entire afterlife outside of the private smile Alex gets when Magnus makes a particularly dumb joke and she's trying not to see overly fond. He follows a half-second behind, only tickling Galahad a little.

Galahad doesn't try to resist, simply collapses backwards under their onslaught, letting his limbs sprawl out -- it's a strange sensation for someone whose body is usually so tightly controlled, but he wants to please Sunny.

She crawls around on Galahad, making ghost noises. It's a lot of "oooooo!" and "uuuuuuuuh!" and nothing at all like what she has heard her ghost friend say before (which, to be fair, isn't anything at all, she doesn't think her ghost friend can talk), but she figures it will add to the vibes.

Okay, that's it, Magnus is too charmed to function. He gives up on tickling Galahad and lies down next to him instead, so that Sunny's ghostly reach can extend further if she wants it to.

Pretending isn't something that comes naturally to him, but he takes things seriously, so he says nothing and does his best to make his body stiff and still, like the dead bodies he's been responsible for.

Sunny crawls from Galahad's chest to Magnu's, still making her fake ghost noises.

Magnus knows that Sunny will get distracted by something else soon, so he just knocks his knuckles companionably against Galahad's and tries to emulate his level of stiffness.

Frankly, there's no limit on how long Galahad can do this. He knows how to be still and silent, and he knows his own feelings of leaving his body, of hovering above it like a ghost. He feels Magnus' touch, but it's distant and unreal. He is a corpse, fallen beneath the claws of a dragon. He no longer needs to breathe or feel, only to watch while Sunny clambers over them.

After a very long time (for Sunny) of being a ghost, she climbs off of them and announces, “Okay, alive.”

Magnus cracks an eye open. "Alive?"

Galahad waits to stop being a corpse, but he does come closer to his body again.

"Yeah. Not dead."

Magnus sits up. "Did you see any cool new bugs while you were killing us dead?"

This is also of interest to Galahad, so he elects to return to life as well, and sits up in turn.

"Oh," she says embarrassed. "Forgot." Because she was so busy being a ghost she forgot to look for bugs.

"That's okay, we can look now, right?"

"There are still bugs," Galahad agrees.

"Small," she says, thinking out loud. What she means is, "I wonder what the smallest kind of bug is."

"Something so small you can't even see it without a special tool," Magnus tells her, signing the full extent of her question to Galahad.

"Springtails and mites are very small, but the smallest known insect is a parasitic wasp called a fairyfly," Galahad says promptly. "It is the same width as a hair."

That is very little. Hairs are super small. There could be one of those bugs on her right now and she wouldn't even notice, probably. She giggles.

"Are waterbears bugs?"

"Tardigrades are a micro-animal. This term refers to organisms that exhibit animal-like qualities, and have body sizes that are usually less than point-one millimeters."

Thank you explaining she signs to Galahad while simultaneously trying to imagine a bear that is made out of water and also so small it's called micro.

"Dang, okay." Magnus looks over at Sunny. "It's so cool how much stuff he knows, huh?"

Galahad blushes, but it's a pleased blush. Magnus is one of the first people he can remember thinking it was cool when he knew too much about something. You're welcome, he signs back to Sunny. "I've been studying."

She nods and signs book. Because that's how Klaus studies and knows so much too.

"Yeah, Galahad reads a lot," Magnus says, proud. "But he also listens a lot, too, so he learns a lot from that, too."

Edited 2024-09-25 03:43 (UTC)

"I like listening," he agrees.

"Listening's good," Sunny says knowledgably. "More listen," which means something like, "If more people listened I think the world would be better than it is."

Magnus, of course, translates the full message with sign. Then: "So true," he tells Sunny.

"You listen well too," Galahad says to Sunny, signing along with his words. "I will learn to understand you better."

"Can't read," she says with a shrug. "Only can listen."

"You want us to teach you how to read?" Magnus asks. "It might make the alphabet easier." He starts signing through the alphabet demonstratively.

Isn't this reading? he signs.

"Oh," she says. Well then. In that case, "Can read!"

Is it? Huh. "Is it?" Magnus asks. Obviously Sunny can do absolutely anything she tries to, but she's still... middling to bad at the alphabet in order.

They are words we see instead of hear. He looks at Sunny, and makes himself smile, on purpose, which is a little awkward.

She smiles back. "Bookstoo," she says after a moment's consideration. What she means is, "I want to learn how to read books too though."

"Books too," Magnus promises. "Hey, did you know Galahad is really good at storytelling? He reads to Temeraire a lot."

At once his smile drops back into the more comfortable blank expression. "Reading is not the same thing as storytelling," he says, because it's an important distinction and he doesn't want Sunny to get the wrong idea.

She knows that those are different skills. She cannot read, but she could make up a story to tell someone if she wanted to, so she nods in agreement.

"Okay, but you know what I mean though, right?"

"You mean that I'm good at reading," Galahad says.

"Like Klaus!"

"Reading, and specifically reading out loud," Magnus nods, and tweaks Sunny's ponytail. "Just like your brother."

"What kinds of stories do you like? Temeraire likes poetry and stories from China. He doesn't mind what they're about."

"Any," she says. Her mother used to read her a wide variety, before she perished.

Magnus twists to look at her. "What's your very favorite?"

Galahad is watching too.

Sunny thinks about this, and tries to remember some of the stories her mom used to read. She shrugs, because she can't remember what any of them were right now.

"How about we make a little library just for you? Of books you might like so Galahad -- or me, I guess -- can read them to you? We can keep it in our room." Magnus, of course, means the one Galahad painted for him, that was Galahad's temporary chapel, where he and Sunny play Godzilla Attack!

Galahad's eyes light -- he's already thinking about his favorite books, when he was a child at the nunnery.

Sunny is visibly excited about this idea. "Library nice!" If she has her own library it will make looking things up a lot easier, if she ever needs to look something up. She and her siblings often found answers to questions they had about things by looking them up in libraries, even if said library was unusual or limited.

"Maybe some picture books about bugs," Magnus adds, thoughtfully. "So you can help Galahad with his science."

"I will look," he promises.

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

"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.

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?"

"Rakgronel!" she tells him while hugging him, which here means, "I'm as good as can be expected!"

"I am glad to hear that," Aleksander said, choosing to believe that "rakgronel" meant she was doing very well indeed. He grinned at her and patted the bag. "I have something for you."

Sunny gasps and waits patiently.

Making a show of it, Aleksander opened his bag and very slowly drew out the carved wooden duck. He smiled playfully as he lifted the duck in the air and made it swim through the air towards Sunny. "This little one was telling me he would like to have a home with a little girl with blonde hair and very sharp teeth and I thought of you at once."

Sunny grabs at the small ponytail on top of her head and tries to pull the hair down where she can check the color. It doesn't work, however, as her hair has not yet had much time to grow out, and is still quite short.

Aleksander laughed softly and made the duck gently tap Sunny's forehead. "Will you look after him?"

She grins and takes the duck, giving it a big hug.

Sunny's reaction was everything Aleksander had hoped and he couldn't stop beaming. "I knew I could count on you."

"Thanks!" She sets the duck safely down on the ground and pats its head, then wraps her arms around Aleksander's neck and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"You are very welcome," Aleksander said tenderly, bending down so it would be easier for her to reach.

She picks up the duck and plays with it. "Plays with it" is a phrase which here means, "starts biting it".

Aleksander watched her for a few moments, a fond smile on his face. It was cruel of the Mansion to bring her here without her family, he thought, but if she had to be here then at least she was surrounded by people who cared about her very much.

"Good?" he asked. "I tried to find a block of wood that would be perfect for biting."

He was not entirely joking.

"Good!" she confirms, then holds the duck up to Aleksander's face, in case he wants to bite it too.

Aleksander grinned as he tapped the duck gently. "I am glad. And you are very thoughtful to offer me a bite but I am quite all right. I shouldn't need to bite anything for awhile."

In that case she goes back to biting it herself.

Aleksander watched her for a few moments, wanting to give her time to enjoy biting her new friend and find all of the best spots to bite. He was already thinking of what next to carve for her - a sheep or maybe a horse. It needed to be something that would provide good surfaces for biting.

"Will you give him a name?"

She looks at the duck. Maybe it does need a name. She has never named a duck before. Uncle Monty named a snake. He gave it a misnomer, which means he gave it a very scary name even though it was the second sweetest snake she has ever known. Maybe she should give this duck a misnomer as well.

"Smodea," she decides on, then giggles to herself. At least the duck can't make her float.

Smodea was a rather unusual name and for a moment, Aleksander wondered if she meant 'Asmodean' but surely not. She hadn't even met him, had she?

"What a perfect name," he said brightly. "I approve."

Sunny laughs a lot.

"I am glad you are delighted," Aleksander grinned. "I will have to see what I can do about finding you other little animals. I wouldn't want Smodea to be lonely."

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.

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

"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?"

She waves hello. "Walk!"

"I'm out for a walk as well! Do you want to walk together? I was going to see where my ferret, Khitka, got off to."

"Ferret?"

"Ferret," Nina confirms. "She's a long, skinny animal. Very soft and wriggly. Sharp little needles for teeth, though. Khitka! There's someone new to meet!" She calls out for her.

Sunny points to her own teeth, which are also very sharp. All five of them.

"Saints! Those are impressive," Nina tells her solemnly. At this point, Khitka skids around the corner and screeches to a halt in front of Sunny with a soft little dook, startled to see such a small human!

Sunny squats down to see the animal more closely. She points at it, then looks at Nina.

Khitka stretches herself out to sniff Sunny's finger and then jumps onto Sunny's shoulder with glee. "Khitka," Nina says, already sounding resigned. "That's not polite! ...I think she's hungry. Do you want to go find some food?"

Sunny thinks it is nice that she has a new friend now! Two, if you count Nina. She nods and says “Esh!” while signing Yes.

Yes, food, Nina signs back. Khitka stares intently as if to imprint this potentially other word for food into her brain. Nina's learned a little bit from Magnus and she's always been a quick study at any sort of language. "Would you like to walk there together?"

"Okay," Sunny says and holds up a hand for Nina to take, because as we have already discussed elsewhere in another thread, it is safer for people Sunny's size to hold someone's hand while they walk, even when there is not a parking lot full of cars or a street full of cars or a sidewalk full of cars for her to need to cross.

Nina takes her hand and suddenly feels very aware of how much she's grown. The last time she interacted with a child of Sunny's age for an extended period of time was in the orphanage when she herself was 7 or 8, much shorter in stature.

"Let's go," she says. As they walk at a careful pace, Khitka bounds ahead. A minute later, she returns with a gold ring clutched in her mouth and carefully deposits it in front of Sunny with a proud dook.

"Khitka..." Nina says, with a little sigh.

Sunny picks up the ring and says, "Thanks," to Khitka. She looks at the ring. It's gold. She very recently has learned that if you can learn how to eat gold you can turn stoves on and off with magic. That's called cultivation.

She goes to bite down on the ring to try herself--

"Saints, Sunny, no!" Nina tells her, worried that she's going to choke on it. It's the perfect size for that. She reaches down to grab it. "That's not something you're supposed to eat."

Sunny frowns.

She holds the ring, curious. "Why did you want to eat this?" Khitka chatters, slightly upset that she has taken the ring away. That was a gift for Sunny.

"Aawagee tuah aloksuf bafly ga, prata mn ralwek cook!" Sunny very helpfully explains.

"True," Nina tells her, as sagely as she can muster, "but I'm afraid that this is so small, you might choke on it! I'm also... not sure whose it is."

Sunny does not think she would choke on it. She crosses her arms.

"If it's something shiny and gold you want, we can try and find something bigger," Nina says, in her best persuasive tone. "Along with some food for Khitka."

Bigger might be good, Sunny reasons. She uncrosses her arms.

"Onward?" Nina asks, offering her hand again. Khitka bounds off again, still upset that her present that was specifically for Sunny was taken away.

Sunny grabs on to Nina's hand.

As Nina leads her towards one of the kitchens, Khitka comes bounding back and is determinedly carrying something in her mouth that's making a thunk thunk thunk sound as she runs. Sunny wants something gold? Nina thinks a ring is too small? Well fine! She's now carrying a gold candlestick holder by the thinnest part and she lays it in front of Sunny.

"Khitka..." Nina says, again. Where did she get that from?

"Oh thanks," Sunny says as she carefully bends over to pick up the candlestick holder. She immediately starts to chew on one end.

Nina suddenly feels a bit too Adult for her own liking, but she supposes there's no harm in Sunny chewing on a candlestick. "Is that what you wanted?"

She nods.

Sunny and Khitka: 1, Nina: 0. "Alright," she says, peeking into the kitchen. "What would the two of you like to eat? Please don't ask me to cook anything." Khitka sits in front of the fridge and flops over, looking as cute as she possibly can. She knows there are eggs in there.

“Caire,” she says and signs carrot.

The combination is enough for Nina to figure it out; she digs around in the fridge and finds one (and yes, Khitka, she takes out a quail egg as well), washing it before handing it over to Sunny. "Do you want the whole thing or should I cut it for you?"

“All!” She says, reaching out to grab it from Nina. “Bite!”

Nina hands her the entire carrot. She also cracks the quail egg in a small bowl and slips it to Khitka, who happily chows down on it. "Sunny, do you want to see a magic trick?" Nina asks.

Sunny nods as she munches on her carrot.

It still pains Nina in some part of her soul to call it "magic" but she's nothing if not adaptable. She only has her bone shards on her person in a pouch, so she pulls a couple out and sends them spiraling through the air, careful to keep them a good distance from Sunny.

“Wow!” Sunny says, smiling. Everyone here is so magical!

Nina leaves the shards whirling with a simple hand gesture and looks at Sunny speculatively. "Can you do magic, Sunny?" The mansion spirits wouldn't bring an absolutely helpless child in, would they? Then again, her abilities didn't begin developing until she was around 6 or 7.

Sunny shakes her head no. This is why she wanted to eat the gold! Lan Wangji said it would give her magic powers called cultivations. Or something, she can't really remember exactly what he said. She makes a mental note to ask again, the next time she sees him.

"I see," Nina says, considering things for a moment, retracting the bone shards and send them flying back into the pouch. Khitka has finished her egg (well, she had finished it 10 seconds after Nina put it down) and is now licking the bowl around the ground of the kitchen. "Do you want to do magic?"

"Uh huh!"

She takes out one of her bone lights, a small piece of bone with clear windows in it, filled with a fluorescent material that's inactive right now. "If you're ever in the dark and scared and you need a little light, just say zyoma¹ and give it a good shake." She holds it out to Sunny.

¹Ravkan for 'moon'.

Sunny gasps. She hopes she does not need to use it any time soon, but she clutches it tightly anyway. "Thanks!" She doesn't have any pockets in this outfit, so she shoves it down the front of her onesie. For safe keeping.

Nina hopes she doesn't lose it that way but she has plenty more where it came from. They could come in handy the next time Dark rolls around. "You're very welcome," she tells Sunny.

Sunny thinks this sounds a lot easier than eating gold. Though she would prefer to have magic that helps her cook, so she picks the candlestick and starts gnawing on it again.

Well, it's not hurting her... Nina lets her chew on it and tidies up the bowl that Khitka was licking. "Well, what next? Do you need anything else, Sunny?"

Sunny shakes her head no. She's quite content now.

Nina is still reluctant to leave such a small child on their own -- but she has an idea. "Sunny, if you ever need anything or you're lost and don't know what to do, call Khitka's name and have her come fetch me."

"Kicka," Sunny tries to repeat.

Khitka perks her head up, hopeful for another egg. Close enough. "You've got it," Nina tells Sunny. "And my name is Nina." She fingerspells N-I-N-A; she hasn't figured out an actual sign language name yet.

"Nina," Sunny repeats back, glad that it is an easy name to say, and she tries to repeat back the finger spelling as well.

"Yes. I'll always help out if you're in trouble -- or if you need help finding a snack," she gives Sunny a little wink.

Sunny nods. "Sunny too," Sunny says, which here means, "I will also help you out if you are in trouble or need help finding a snack."

"Thank you, Sunny," Nina tells her solemnly. "I'll see you soon." It seems like a good time to part ways and it is uneasy to leave a young child alone, but Nina knows that now that Khitka has made a new friend, she'll pop in and check on her every once in a while.

"Okay bye!" Sunny waves.

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."

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

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

“No,” she says. This is the longest she has lived anywhere since her family’s mansion suddenly burned down. “Sunny,” she says, signing her name at the same time, as an introduction.

"Sunny," he repeats. "It's lovely to meet you, Sunny. Should you be... with... someone?"

She shakes her head no. She may be a bit of an unreliable narrator. “Unreliable narrator” is a phrase which here means, “accidentally lying”.

"No? Where do you stay?"

“Otate,” she explains, which here means, “I rotate through several different rooms.”

She thinks for a moment before adding, “Waetee,” which means, “Most of my things are at Laertes and Sagramore’s house though.”

"I have no idea what that means, Miss Sunny," Kade says. "Would you like some help finding... Otate Waetee?"

“Ugh!” Sunny sighs a sigh so big her entire body slumps forward with it. “No!” It would be great if everyone could understand her. She decides to try again. “Waetee and Sagamo!” She points in a direction she assumes is Outside. “House.”

Sunny has the precise comportment of a teenager. Kade does know what to do with teenagers, and is summarily charmed. "Oh, Sagramore," he says. It seems that they have a lot to catch up on! "And... Laertes?"

“Esh!!!” That’s what she said!

"Well, I'm sorry, little lady. I'm slow on the uptake," Kade laughs. "One of my many failings, I assure you. Would you like me to take you to them?"

"No," she says. She's exploring the mansion right now. She can head back to the house later.

"No?" For the first time, Kade wishes he could text here, just to let Sagramore know Sunny is safe. "Would you like me to take you somewhere else?"

She shrugs. Like Crowley says, she's an independent woman, and definitely doesn't need a man to escort her places.

Edited 2024-08-04 00:47 (UTC)

Kade can't just leave a baby alone! He's used to waiting teenagers out; he sits on the floor to wait the baby out, too.

"Kay. Bye!" She starts walking down the hallway, heading to the library. She thinks a picture book would be nice to look at right now.

Kade gets to his feet again and wanders after her, an expression of utmost innocence on his face.

Sunny walks for a while before stopping and turning to look at Kade. "Following."

Since Kade has strict rules about not lying to children, he doesn't deny it. "Yes."

"Why?" She pauses. "Olaf?" she asks, wondering if he is perhaps a new associate of Count Olaf's who is trying to kidnap her.

"Olaf? I'm afraid I don't know any Olafs." Kade pauses and tries to recalibrate. "May I keep you company?"

"Why?" she asks again. She's beginning to think she shouldn't trust him. Strangers following you isn't usually a good sign.

In Kade's experience, most kids don't like being told that they're young enough to need particular adult support. He's honest with all children, but that doesn't mean he can't be selectively honest! "I'm a teacher back home. I miss my students. I'd like to spend time with someone student-aged." Who can he talk to about getting, at the very least, pagers up in this place! He hopes Sagramore isn't searching too frantically for Sunny.

"Prufrock," Sunny says skeptically, which here means, "I am not old enough to be a student. That is why I had to work as an administrative assistant when attending Prufrock Preparatory School".

"Prufrock?" Kade says. "As in, the Love Song of J. Alfred? 'In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo?'"

Edited 2024-08-05 23:15 (UTC)

Sunny gives him a look that seems to say on what planet would that be what I meant? and responds, "School."

"A school named Prufrock," Kade says, with a big, disarming grin. "My school was called Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. We taught kids who went to different worlds and then came back again."

Sunny's breath catches. To say someone's breath catches does not mean her lungs put on a baseball mitt and caught a ball, rather that she temporarily stopped breathing, rather involuntarily. There are many different situations in life which could cause this in someone. An unexpected present could cause your breath to catch. The sight of your wife in a pale blue vest, high waisted pants with suspenders, and rolled up shirtsleeves on your wedding day could cause your breath to catch. In this case, Sunny's breath catches because she did not think anyone here knew how to go between worlds.

"Back?" she asks, cautiously hopeful that this creepy man who keeps following her might be able to get her back to her siblings.

"Back," Kade confirms. "My students were ones who went to different Worlds that were remarkably well-suited to them and their needs, and then somehow stumbled back to one that isn't as nice."

Sunny thinks this world is remarkably well-suited to her and her needs, but she desperately wants to somehow stumble back to the one that isn't as nice. Ideally she would prefer it if Violet and Klaus would come here, but since they seem in no hurry she thinks she might have to go find them instead. "How?"

"It really depends," says Kade. "I have a friend who became a mermaid in her new World, and she got sent back because she woke up one morning missing sandwiches! Mermaids can't have sandwiches, you see. The bread gets too soggy underwater. I had another couple friends who got sent back just for a little bit, so they could make certain they really wanted to live in their Worlds forever."

Sunny thinks about this. Is there something in her old world that she can't have here? Just her siblings, but she wakes up every morning missing them, and has yet to be sent back. The problem is that she can't think of anything else to miss that she couldn't just get here by getting someone to open a cabinet for her. She's certain even Aunt Josephine's cold cucumber soup would show up if she thought about it hard enough.

"You came here from another world, didn't you, Sunny?"

Sunny nods.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

Sunny shakes her head no and then says, "Paweneo," which here means, "I was asleep, and then I woke up here by the welcome table," though she doesn't expect Kade to understand her. She does helpfully also sign sleep and then wake up, but she doesn't know if he will understand that either.

Luckily, Kade's had a couple of lessons from Magnus, too! "Sleep and wake up, huh?"

"Uh huh."

"That must've been a big surprise!"

She nods. "Briny," she says, which here means, "A terrible surprise".

"Briny?"

She signs bad.

Kade makes a commiseratory face. "You got stuff you miss from back home, Sunny?"

“Violet Klaus.”

"Violet Klaus," Kade repeats. "Are those your parents?"

"No." Her parents aren't named Violet and Klaus, they're named ~~B▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ and B▮▮▮▮▮▮▮~~ Mommy and Daddy.

"Are they... your friends?" This is, to be clear, Kade being funny.

Edited 2024-08-16 03:14 (UTC)

"Baudelaire orphans," she says, then turns to try and walk away again. He's not being very helpful, he's just getting her hopes up about being able to see Violet and Klaus, like the furby did.

She's still a baby, and Kade is still a responsible adult, so he follows her. "I'm sorry," he says. He's also made the connection to her source material!

"Stop it," she says over her shoulder.

"Until you're with another adult, I'm going to hang out with you," Kade advises.

Fine then, she will just have to find an adult. She walks around a corner and spots a door she recognizes, so she goes up and knocks on it. "Sissy!" she yells impatiently, a word which here means, "loudly".

Dionysus hears the quiet knocking and hears a tiny little voice, so he sets the book he was reading¹ down and goes over to the door. "Is that little Sunny I hear?" he asks as he opens it and is honestly a little surprised to see Kade there with her. "Kade! Nice to see you," he says as he bends down to pick up Sunny, who seems a little clingier than normal. "Oh, Sunny, you're getting so big! You're going to be taller than Auntie Sissy soon!" He directs his attention back to Kade. "How've you been?"

1. Several pages are missing.

"Oh, sweet baby Jesus, thank you," Kade mutters, and then, louder: "Dionysus! Hey."

“Down!” Sunny says, squirming, so Dionysus of course sets her back down. He watches as she runs off into his room and plops over on a stack of cushions in the floor. He then turns his attention back to Kade again. “So hey, uh, while you’re here — Sagramore mentioned to me recently that you’re a therapist?”

"I think I'm giving her real stranger danger," Kade confides, sotto voce, ignoring the question because it's so out of left field that he doesn't even know how to begin addressing it. "But she's an unaccompanied baby, so I wasn't going to let her just wander off." His grin, for the briefest moment, gets the edge of a grimace to it. "I'm much better with 'em once they hit the double digits."

"Oh -- goodness, well, thank you for keeping an eye on her." There is, of course, an unknown¹ murderer roaming around, definitely best to keep an eye on Sunny even if she doesn't appreciate it in the meantime.

1. ...one of these days someone will fill him in on what has been going on.

"Yeah, yeah, my pleasure."

Dionysus can hear Sunny messing with a cd case and chanting "Horton! Horton!" so he says, "Yes, honey, I will put on some music in just a moment, can you set that down for Auntie Sissy? Thank you, sweetheart. Anyway--" he's talking to Kade again now, "Thank you. Sagramore said you have been a big help to him. He deserves every happiness."

"Really!" says Kade, sounding pleased. "Oh, that's just great. He's a good friend."

"He's such a sweetie, and does everything with his whole heart," Dionysus says with a small smile.

"He sure does," agrees Kade. He's thinking about the six different outfits in varying stages of getting mocked up in his room. Oh hey, maybe now's a good time to sound Dionysus out on the kind of outfit he'd most like to see Sagramore in? Or--there's a baby about five feet away; maybe not.

Dionysus hears the unmistakable sound of a bunch of cds falling to the ground and winces. "I should probably go get her settled. Thank you again for dropping her off."

Kade laughs. "Pretty sure she dropped herself off, but I was happy to keep an eye on her." He pauses. "Could you let her know I'm friendly? If she's prone to wandering, I wouldn't want her to freak out if I'm the one who stumbles across her."

Dionysus smiles. "Will do. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure who keeps letting her go around unattended in the first place. She's way too young for that."

"I was thinking the exact same thing." Kade gives Dionysus a warm smile and claps him on the shoulder. "I'll let you get to your... belongings... but we should catch up soon, by the way."

"I look forward to it!"

Kade gives him a jaunty little half-wave and wanders off.

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

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