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

[biteybaby]

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

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

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

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

Comments

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

"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.

[summerdude]

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."

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

"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!!"

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

"Huh?"

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

"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."

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"The svartalfs and Ymir?"

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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?"

[onthewillowsthere]

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."

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

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.