I Turn, Um... Uh... Sixteen? For The Tenth? Time???? [open post]

[summerdude]

It's Magnus's birthday and he is a man with a surplus of plans. And many, many plastic recorders.

He's still a little overstimulated from the birthday party Galahad got Claudius to throw for the two of them — he loves all his friends, but that was a lot of people in one space, most of whom were also feeling many, many things about their visitors — and so it's been a quiet few days. Sunny is still a little subdued, so they've been having muted hangouts in the mornings; Galahad, also overstimulated from their birthday party, has fortunately been on Magnus's wavelength about just sailing around aimlessly on the Big Banana with many snacks and very little conversation during their daily hangs for the past few days. He drags himself to sword practice with Lancelot once or twice, has his weekly dinner at Hanguang-jun's, spends a great solo afternoon cleaning out Little John's cave in case anyone else wants to use it at some point, and lets Alex tease him into wrestling and, um, other stuff after dinner basically every night.

But on this, the twenty-sixth anniversary of Magnus's actual birth, most of his energy has returned to him. He's made birthday dinner plans with just his immediate family (and also Alex and Hanguang-jun) at their house for the evening. He's had his liveliest morning of the week. And with his newly regained energy he's found critical supplies for his afternoon: a roll of duct tape, several trash bags, eight recorders, a handful of hollow pens, and a dream. He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Mansion's lawn, a look of grave concentration on his face, as he makes little holes in a bag, duct tapes two recorders and one pen here and there, and then seals it all up.

And then he takes a deep breath, fits his mouth to the hollow pen, and blows the bag up. When he places it under his arm and squeezes, he's gratified to find that his makeshift bagpipes work perfectly. And he still has supplies for a couple more!



I know everyone is still busy with visitor's day so feel free to take your time on this one... but I would love to ultimately have a ton of Chaos Thread Opportunities.

Comments

[summerdude]

"Dindin plays reeboks? That's so much cooler than the violin."

[biteybaby]

"Yeah! Sound waaaay better. Not like--" and here Sunny Baudelaire proceeds to make the approximate screeching sound of Vice Principal Nero's violin playing.

[involuntaryturncoat]

Asmodean smiles at that. "Excellent rendition."

[summerdude]

"That's because Sunny is a great musician even when she's mimicking a bad musician."

[biteybaby]

"Nero really really really bad musician," Sunny explains. "Make listen anyway."

[involuntaryturncoat]

"There are things worse than having to listen to very bad music, but not many."

[summerdude]

"Then it's a good thing me and Sunny are so good on the trashbagpipes, huh, ed-- Asmodean?"

[biteybaby]

Sunny is incredibly aware of the fact that there are some things worse than listening to bad music.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"It is, yes. I applaud your ingenuity."

[summerdude]

"Wanna hear us try Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?"

[biteybaby]

"Yeah we play for you!"

[involuntaryturncoat]

Asmodean nods and promptly sits on the grass facing them. "I await your concert."

[summerdude]

If Magnus doesn't know how to play it, Sunny definitely doesn't know. He grins at her, says, "A-one, and a-two, and a-three, and--" and starts squeezing as much noise out of his trashbagpipe as possible.

[biteybaby]

Sunny similarly is doing her best to make as much noise as she possibly can.

[involuntaryturncoat]

Objectively, the concert is a ruckus. But there is a difference between a ruckus made by a young man and a toddler on a homemade instrument with enthusiasm and a ruckus created by a professional musician with nothing to say for no better reason than shock value. He has sat through the latter several times. This, by comparison, is positively pleasant. He keeps an expression of interest as he listens, even if some of the higher notes especially make him blink a couple times.

[summerdude]

Dad's edgelord boyfriend is being... weirdly nice about this. Huh.

Magnus starts weaving what he can remember of an actual tune into the noise he's producing. It's Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.

[biteybaby]

Eventually Sunny gets tired, because it takes a lot of work to play a trashbagpipe so well, so she quits playing and holds hers out to Asmodean. “Want turn?”

[involuntaryturncoat]

Asmodean's eyebrows rise in mild surprise as he takes the trashbagpipe from Sunny. "Thank you," he says as he looks it over, contemplating which of the many available options he should take for this. There are some bagpipes in the music room so he has gained a bit of familiarity with them, and could probably manage to produce a tune even on this rather improvised instrument... but then a slightly different idea occurs to him. After a deep breath, he starts to play, and produces a creditable recreation of Sunny's impression of Vice Principal Nero's violining, only a bit less strident, even with the difference in instrumentation.

[summerdude]

Ugh, and he can play the trashbagpipe, too? "Can you do Mambo Number Five?"

[biteybaby]

Sunny doesn't know the song Magnu is talking about, but she counts "One two three four five!" just to contribute something to the conversation.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"I regret to say that I do not know that piece, so no, I cannot."

[summerdude]

"You gotta catch up on your Earth music," Magnus tells Asmodean, shaking his head. "Sunny, you're doing a great job singing it, though."

[biteybaby]

"Huh?" She wasn't singing, she was counting.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Clearly I will have to look into the song. Is this the best instrument for it?" In all honesty, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter what Mambo Number Five sounds like, it was not written for the trashbagpipe, but that doesn't really matter.

[summerdude]

"This or bike horns, definitely," Magnus says, and then turns to Sunny with wide eyes. "Sunny, we have to figure out how to attach bike horns to our trashbagpipes."