Sunny Milk's Nice, Ponderous, Friend-filled Day

For the Ni-yousei plus Bakaneko, Sunny Child was the only one having a good dayof the three. At least, she considered herself to be the happy one what with the other two sniping at one another.

They were fighting because that’s what people did when they were waiting. Okay, not really, but as soon as they had stopped and the silence had gone on a bit too long, Chen had did something, Star got snippy, and then they were yelling.

So people fought when they were waiting for something.

Sunny wondered if that was what sarcasm was. Saying one thing that was stupid and not true as if it was true. It was boring, but the options were to pick a side in the fight or wait it out, and Sunny was going to wait it out.

Still boring though.

After having a nice teatime catchup with Luna Child at the Scarlet Devil Mansion and after Chen’s meeting with Missus Remillia, the three had gone off searching for the rest of the stray cats. Star was smart though and had suggested that instead of chasing after the cats, they could try and head them off.

Except Star hadn’t said anything about that until just now which caused Chen to get snippy. Or was it Star that got snippy. Did it even matter, Sunny wondered. Either way, she was the one stuck waiting while the other two yelled at each other.

“Just because Boss-man calls her a Greater Fairy!” Star Sapphire grumbled, “She doesn’t even have a proper Name! Who calls themselves Daiyousei!? That’d be like me saying I’m called Hoshinoyosei!”

Like that.

So Sunny was off to the side, doing her own thing and… what was it that Boss-man called it? Vibing? Sunny was off to the side and vibing. Sunny knew waiting got boring, but did they really have to pick a fight?

Star continued to shout at Chen who was also shouting back, so Sunny figured that this was the bit where she zoned out and fiddled with light. Invisibility was a lot harder than you’d think. You had to fiddle with light so that you could still see things but others couldn't see you. So Sunny practiced bending and separating light whenever she zoned out.

Making prisms and diamonds of various colors, Sunny started to think. While Sunny wasn’t the smartest fairy, she was still smarter than Cirno which meant that she could guess that Star wasn’t angry at Chen, but was really angry at Daiyousei.

Something something about not being the leader anymore? Sunny didn’t really pay attention to long, angry speeches. She heard them, but didn’t really listen.

In her opinion, Sunny figured that at least Daiyousei didn’t abandon the team at the first sign of trouble. To be fair, Star didn’t abandon “abandon” the team, she always came back with a backup plan and a getaway scheme for the San-yousei, but there were only so many times you could watch a teammate run away before it got annoying. SO Sunny liked Dai.

She still tried to support Star, but… eh, Sunny wasn’t the smartest. That was Luna. Star was the cleverest, Luna was the Smartest, and Sunny was… well, Sunny was Sunny, but Sunny was happy being Sunny, so that was fine and… Sunny!

Heh! That was pretty clever! Too bad now wasn’t a good time to say that out loud. Usually, Sunny would whisper that to Luna who always giggled at her small clevernesses. That was the word, right? Clevernesses? Luna would know. She read a lot.

…Sunny missed Luna Child. Well, not missed “missed” since Luna always came home to eat and sleep and play, but… she was also always at the library nowadays, and it was so much harder to sneak around without her silencing ability.

Sunny figured that Star was secretly worried that Luna might like books better than the San-yousei. She didn’t say it outright, but Sunny remembered hearing the Fairy of SHimmering Starlight rant about the library hoarding Luna one or a dozen times. That’s why Star tried so hard whenever Boss-man remembered to teach reading. Maybe if Star showed she could read like Luna, Luna would hang out more. Sunny didn’t try as hard, but Sunny wasn’t worried about Luna leaving. Luna would always come back. That was the San-yousei! Together forever! Or reunited later! Something like that!

Star really shouldn’t be so snippy because of that fear. Sunny wished she was smart enough to tell Star that in clever ways, but… she wasn’t, so Sunny would just have to be there to help fingle things out. Was it fingle or figure?

Luna would know. Oh well, Sunny would just do what Sunny could.

“I bet it’s like that with you!”

That sounded like Star was finished with her rant. Sunny refocused just a bit to check. Yeah, Star was finished and now it was the… other girl’s turn to rant. That was how these things went, right? That’s how it usually did when Star and Dai started to fight. One side yelled, then the other yelled, and nothing got done which meant it was breaktime.

“No! Miss Ran’s nice! She picked me up and she’s training me and I’m the one who made this mess! The cats won’t listen to me though, and you aren’t helping me, and nobody listens to me!”

“Sounds like you’re being a Daiyousei then!” Star snapped, energy gathering in her palms. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Hey! Hey!” Sunny dismissed her light prisms, rushing forward to hug Star. After the initial struggle, Star settled down with a grumble, “Let’s all just calm down! We still got cats to catch, right?”

Star and Chen mumbled agreement, but still glared at one another. They weren’t talking though, so it was Sunny’s time to speak and fingle things out now then.

“Okay, so I’m not smart,” Sunny nodded as she stroked Star’s hair, hoping to absorb some of her cleverness, “but I think we’ve got problems, right?”

State the obvious and lay things out for now. Angry people didn’t see obvious things which was why Sunny was here to shed some light. Ooh! Another cleverness. Luna would be sure to giggle over those when Sunny talked story about this later to her.

Star shifted, but didn’t disagree. Neither did Chen who was wringing her tails, one in each hand.

“Right,” Sunny nodded, “Star, I think you’re not angry at Chen, you’re angry at Dai.”

“...I guess.”

“And Chen, I get that you think you’re the leader, but you’re not. We’re just here to help.”

“But I know what’s going on!” Chen growled.

“Do you?” Sunny cocked her head in confusion. Sunny thought even Chen knew how out of control everything was right now which meant it was time for the make-it-up-as-you-go-along AKA Run Away. The San-yousei didn’t really have a leader until Boss-man or Daiyousei came along. They had ideas and pranks and when the plan fell apart, they had a guide to safety. Usually Star. Star was good at knowing when to run.

Whoops. Off-topic. Focus, Sunny. Focus.

“...No,” Chen answered, sulkily kicking the ground.

“You gotta remember that we just tagged along. We don’t know you, you don’t know us. I’m guessing it was like that with the cats,” Sunny pointed out, “You just… got a bunch of folks and declared yourself boss. You don’t listen to us, so why should we listen to you? Kind of like Daiyousei, actually.” Sunny felt gratified at hearing Star snort at that last comparison, but also felt kind of bad for talking smack about Daiyousei.

Daiyousei wasn’t always like that, but she was pretty often like that. Sunny did say that Daiyousei was a good leader, but Sunny also figured it was good to balance things out by saying what she didn’t like. And Sunny didn’t like how Daiyousei didn’t listen a lot. She was getting better though, and she didn’t run away when trouble came.

Sunny didn’t know how to put it in words. Sunny liked Dai, but sometimes Dai was hard to like. Kind of like Star, but moreso. If Star was clever, Luna was smart, and Sunny was Sunny, then Dai was bossy. Sometimes bossy-harsh when she nagged too much, but also bossy-soft when she begged too much, but sometimes she was bossy-right when she got Cirno to do something for her.

Sunny was getting distracted. Refocus, like Boss-man would say.

“...I know I messed up. I know. I know. I know!” Chen shouted, pulling her hat down, tugging her ears flat against her head, “But… I can’t just keep them from going wild! They’re ruining everything! Miss Ran says it’s fine to have a little chaos, but this is just… just destroying things! It’s ruining things for the sake of ruining and it’s not good!”

Scratching her head, Sunny sighed, “Yeah… I guess someone’s got to look at the big picture. Even if it’s fuck-y.” Sunny didn’t know what fuck meant, but Boss-man said it when he didn’t know what was going on, so now seemed like a good time to say it. “I mean you’re just trying her best! Like Daiyousei!”

You got to listen to us too though,” Star cut in suddenly, Talk to us, not at us.”

Yes! Star wasn’t snippy anymore. She was snarky. Snippy Star was just mean, but Snarky Star meant that she was going to help and already had a plan.

Chen stared at Star in surprise. Her tails flicking side to side, the cat-girl hesitantly agreed, “...I guess? …“But… fine, what do you guys want to do?”

“Well, we can’t stop the cats when they’re journeying, but we can collect them while they’re playing in a place,” Star sighed, flipping her long black hair to emphasize how clever she was.

Star was super clever. Sunny was proud of how clever she was and prouder of how much nicer she was. Star was… snippy most of the time, but when she was nice, she was clever-nice which was better than nice. That was good. Sunny didn’t know Chen too well, but she hoped that they could hang out more and if Star was helping that meant Star liked Chen and that meant maybe Chen would hang out more later! Which meant more friends and better pranks and more snacks from Boss-man!

Star continued, explaining her logic, “So if we let them group up someplace else and lead them away after they’ve calmed down a bit, we can grab all of them!”

“Yeah!” Sunny pumped a fist, cheering. She had actually paid attention to all that, but didn’t quite get it. Star sounded confident though and she was the clever one, so that meant not quite at the run-away bit of plans-gone-wrong.

“But that would mean someplace else has to get destroyed!” Chen panicked.

“It’s not that bad,” Star waved a hand dismissively, “Boss-man’s place only got destroyed because he refuses to settle down in an actual place. It’s been destroyed loads of times. He just rebuilds it. Humans are good at that.”

“Yeah! We actually destroyed one of his first campsites.”

“In our defense, that’s before we actually met him and were just pranking him,” Star explained before clapping her hands, “Anyways! Continuing on! The Library’s a bit scratched-”

Sunny nodded, crossing her arms, “And smells a bit like pee.”

“But it’s mostly fine. Nothing, a bit of time and work can’t fix. These sort of things happen in threes.”

“Yeah, like three fairies, three treasures, threes are important,” Sunny said, holding up three fingers.

Star then concluded,  “So the cats are going to destroy at least one more thing.”

Chen rubbed her chin for a bit. Pacing back and forth, Sunny watched with Star at the cat-girl thinking.

“...Makes sense,” Chen nodded. “I can think of a few places to lead them close to here, but the best place would be the human village.”

“Why?” Star asked. Not like the “fighting kind” why, Sunny noted that Star used against Dai when Dai was too bossy. More the “why” kind of why when Boss-man went a bit too fast in talking about things.

If Star didn’t understand, Sunny felt a whole lot better about being confused as to why they had to lead the cats to the human village.

Opening her mouth to snap at them, Chen, instead, took a moment to close her eyes and breath deeply. Snapping them open, Chen explained, “Because the only other place that I think the cats would be interested in would be the Mountain.”

“The one with all the Tengu and BIG yokai?”

“Yupyup,” Chen nodded, hands lengthening into claws as she clenched and unclenched them, “And the Tengu REALLY don’t like MIss Yukari. It’ll be a problem if they have a reason to take it out on her. I think we can mitigate it if we warn them, but it’sprobably,definitely  too late for that and...”-the bakaneko pulled her hat down-“Oh, I should have paid more attention to Miss Ran’s lectures on politics! They’re so boring though!”

“...Huh?” Sunny was confused. Not by the last bit, that sounded like Chen fell asleep in lessons and since Sunny did the same, she couldn’t really complain. Sunny was confused by the whole Tengu not liking whoever Miss Yukari was. What did that have to do with catching stray cats?

Stray cats were stray cats, Tengu not liking someone was something else.

“Sunny Milk doesn’t get it, and neither do I,” Star cut in, helpfully explaining Sunny’s confusion, “but the gist is is Mountain bad, Village good, right?”

“Yeah,” Chen nodded, sighing in relief.

“Wait, can’t we let them go to that big flowerfield? No one’s there.” Sunny crossed her arms and beamed. There! No humans got hurt, no angry tengu, perfect solution. It was just a stone’s throw away too.

“That’s the Garden of the Sun.” Chen reminded with a wince, “Where the Scary Lady with the Umbrella lives.”

Still beaming, Sunny nodded, “Right, let’s not go there. That’s a scary place.”

“Well then, off to destroy a village then,” Star drawled.

“Not destroy!” Chen waved her hands frantically, “Just direct the cats there, so they can stay in one place long enough!”

“Okay, so we’ve got a plan,” Star nodded, taking off into the air. THe other two quickly followed, their faces turning to follow Star’s outstretched arm, “Perfect timing actually. The cats are about to pass through here.”

The swarm of cats had gotten smaller since about half of them had been taken in by the Unmoving Great Library at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Part of the deal that Chen made with Miss Scarlet. Sunny didn’t get it, but it was a power move/hostage thing? Chen hadn’t been happy about it, but the way Sunny saw it, it was less work to round up the cats.

…It was still a bit scary to see just how many cats there were. One thing to see them lazing around, another one to see them stampeding.

Thankfully, Star had a plan, “Sunny Milk! Do the thing.”

“The thing?” Sunny cocked her head.

“The thing!” Star repeated, hands up and fingers wriggling.

It took a bit, but Sunny got it. The thing! That thing!

“What’s the thing?” Chen asked, looking to and fro the two fairies.

“It’s a really cool thing.” Star cheered as Sunny flew low to the ground and just in front of the herd of cats Just wait!”

Cupping two hands together, Sunny gathered the light, bending and refracting it unto itself to create a ball. Then carefully opening up a series of hole to create a dazzling shower of white dots on the ground.

[Sun Laser: Distraction Edition]

“Sunny makes lasers!” Star cackled, her usual calm demeanor falling off as a plan fell perfectly into place, And cats love lasers!”

Indeed. The river of cats had ceased their meanderous wandering, following the shower of laser-lights that Sunny controlled to the Human village. Every cat, small and large, bald and fluffy, young and old, followed with felinic glee. Star’s plan was going great, and since Sunny was the main person in charge of doing the plan, Sunny was feeling pretty great.

…Though she was also feeling very confused seeing Chen’s green hat bobbing up and down in the wave.

“What happened!?” Sunny yelled, still following through. She was not good at improvising. That was more Star’s and Moon’s job.

“We forgot that Chen’s also a cat!” Star shouted back, “She just dove in with her eyes all black and wide.”

“That’s not good!” Sunny shouted back.

“Yeah! It’s not!” Star repeated.

“...Should I stop?” Sunny asked right as the cats decided that laser sparkles were boring and there was a nearby human village to invade.

The two fairies watched helplessly as Chen snapped back to her senses just in time to scream helplessly as the wave of cats dragged her bodily into the entrance of the village.

“...I think it’s a bit late for that.” Star muttered.

“...Should we follow?”

“Oh, right, yeah, we should definitely do that.”

As the two fairies flew in, not even bothering to disguise themselves with Sunny’s glamor, and watched the chaos the cats brought occur, Sunny found herself rating this plan as a pretty good one. For one thing, nobody was covered in tree sap yet.