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

[biteybaby]

"Or we put feet," she suggests while pointing to her shoes, by which she of course means they could attach the horns to the bottoms of their shoes so that when they walk around while playing the trashbagpipes they are simultaneously playing the bike horns.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Truly innovative, I think."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, Sunny is the smartest person in the world."

[biteybaby]

Sunny doesn't think that's necessarily true, but she appreciates the compliment.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"I can think of absolutely nothing that contradicts that."

[summerdude]

"Course you can't. It's true."

[biteybaby]

"Magnu you smartest too."

[summerdude]

Magnus grins at her. "I can be the smartest boy when Alex isn't a boy," he says.

[biteybaby]

"I smartest girl when Alex not girl then!" They'll just all rotate titles around.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"An elegant solution. Well done."

[summerdude]

"That does mean that Alex is the smartest-smartest and you and me are second smartest," Magnus points out, completely ignoring Asmodean's contributions to the conversation. "You good with that?"

[biteybaby]

"Yeah!" Then she turns to Asmodean. "What number smart are you?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

"I am not necessarily the best acquainted with everyone, so I do not know if I am equipped to make the judgment, but I will have no complaints if placed last."

[summerdude]

"What do you think, Sunny?"

[biteybaby]

"Probaly not last smartest. Maybe..." she tries to think of a good number. "Twelve."

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Why, that puts me firmly in the top half. I'm flattered and grateful, Sunny. Thank you."

[summerdude]

"Actually it puts you in the top quarter," Magnus says. "Hey, Sunny. Do you know the numbers that come before and after twelve?"

[biteybaby]

"Uh huh. All." Every number other than twelve comes either before or after twelve. There aren't any that come at the same time as twelve.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Impeccable logic."

[summerdude]

"High five," Magnus tells Sunny, holding his hand out. Something about Asmodean rubs him the wrong way, like maybe he's being condescending or something, but Sunny likes him now so Magnus is on Team Not Ribbing Him All The Time Constantly. "Do you know the one number that comes riiiiight before twelve?"

[biteybaby]

She gives him a big high five! "Ten!"

[involuntaryturncoat]

He lets the accolades for the correct answer fall to Magnus in this case. If he is coming across as condescending, it really isn't intentional. Sunny is remarkably astute for her age and Asmodean can certainly recognize that. However, he is also less than practiced in talking to young children, and gaining that practice can be awkward, especially when he's already grossly misstepped with her once.

[summerdude]

"Good guess! Do you know the number that comes right after ten?"

[biteybaby]

She stares. "Not twelve?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

He listens with interest, confident that they'll get there eventually, but wanting to watch the journey.