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

[onthewillowsthere]

"Are you dead?" he asks Sunny.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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?"

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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.

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

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.

[summerdude]

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.

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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.

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

Magnus cracks an eye open. "Alive?"

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

"Yeah. Not dead."

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

"There are still bugs," Galahad agrees.

[biteybaby]

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

[summerdude]

"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.

[onthewillowsthere]

"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."