#sinlings

Addy's eyes blinked open, his turquoise gaze bleary and unfocused, to see a bright yellow glow. It took him a hazy minute to register that he wasn't in his normal bed—it wasn't the sun glowing through his eastern-facing window—it was Roy's golden hair and luminous smile, and he was in the grandiose room they were sharing at the Sin's mansion.

“Wake up Addy! Wake up!” Roy chirped.

Addy made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. He wasn't a morning person at the best of times, and last night they'd all stayed up super late playing hide-and-seek in the dark. Which, admittedly, had been awesome, and so much fun, but he now very much did not want to have to get up at ridiculously-early o'clock...whatever that was. He half rolled over to peer at the clock, which said something approximating 7 am, and he made another muffled grumpy noise and pulled the pillow back over his head.

Roy would not be deterred though, leaning on Addy's bed and bouncing, “Come on Addy! It's EASTER you gotta get up, you gotta get up, there's Easter Eggs to find!”

That was probably the only way to actually get Addy up—promise the hope of chocolatey food. He slowly pulled the pillow off his face, peering up at Roy's glowing visage, “Fiiiiine.”

“Yaaaay!” Roy shoved off the bed again, nearly making Addy tip over as he tried to sit up and do something about the fluffy black and pink hair that seemed to have a mind of its own this morning, “You know there's going to be a competition, to see who can get the most eggs!” He clenched his fists and looked determined, “I bet it's gonna be me; I have a plan all set out!”

“Mrph,” was all Addy commented as he slowly dragged himself out of bed and oozed over to the attached bathroom.

Roy kept on chatting as Addy brushed his teeth, splashed some water on his face, and ran a comb through his hair, which Addy tuned out with practiced ease. When he finally emerged, feeling a little more alive, Roy was perfectly dressed in a pressed, blue-collared shirt, looking every inch the young gentlemen on a mission.

“You look fancy for going out and running around the gardens,” Addy commented, pulling on his own, red shirt. It was decorated with little sparkly Easter eggs embroidered down the front.

“It's Easter! I want to dress up.”

“I wonder what Marie will be wearing? Something fancy I'm sure.”

Roy, who knew, of course, nodded, “You'll see! She spent a long time going through the stores to find the perfect ensemble,” he added a fancy French flair to the last word. Now that Addy was dressed, Roy grabbed his hand and dragged him out of their room.

Once they were in the halls, Addy was even more revitalized by the distinct smell of pancakes and syrup, and now he was trotting along with Roy instead of being pulled.

They emerged into the kitchen, where Britton and Red were well on their way to making a pretty ginormous breakfast for all the associated cousins and families who were spending Easter weekend here. Marie was already seated there, fork and knife clutched in her hands, with her eyes laser-focused on the plate that Britton was carrying over, stacked high with chocolate chip and blueberry and strawberry-topped pancakes. Addy's youngest brothers, Paris and Troy, were both there too; the 7 year olds had been staying with Red and Britton, since they had a tendency to find whatever trouble existed anywhere and manage to immerse themselves in it. Plus...they couldn't be left alone. They were already surreptitiously poking each other at the table, and that was them trying to behave.

Roy had been right—Marie was dressed to the nines. Her pink shirt was decorated with bunnies and eggs in sparkling sequins. Her earrings were glittery Easter eggs, and the headband in her pink hair displayed two fluffy white bunny ears.

“Good morning, princess!” Roy called.

Marie smiled at him, but her attention was quickly reclaimed by the plate set in front of her. In about 10 seconds, she had three pancakes on her plate, had drenched them in real maple syrup, and was proceeding to devour them.

Addy thought that was a perfectly good idea too, and slid into a chair between his cousin and his brothers, stealing specifically only the strawberry and chocolate-related pancakes—whoever thought that blueberries belonged in breakfast treats was very confused.

“Did you sleep well Gumdrop?” Britton asked, fluffing Addy's hair on his way to help Paris and Troy.

“It's not too early for you?” Red smiled, his green eyes sparkling.

Addy's mouth was full, so he just said, “Mmmm,” and kept on munching.

Which was clever, because it was right about then that the rest of the cousins showed up. The first sign was the tell-tale portal created by Luci because he never wanted to bother himself with walking down the stairs, but before he could step through, there was a crashing noise as Miles, Sylvester and Cisco came colliding down the stairs in a tangle of limbs and excited shouts loud enough to wake the dead.

“HAPPY EASTER!” Someone shrieked, and in half a moment the kitchen was full and noisy and excited. Luci jumped in and then he and Miles promptly got in an argument about who made it down first, which Sylvester and Cisco both simultaneously dove for the pancakes, managing to nearly trip each other.

“Whoa there, dumplings,” Britton chided gently, as Red deftly reached to catch the two boys, in one fluid motion setting them into chairs.

Cisco practically bounced in his chair, “Mommy, Daddy, I'm so excited to go get eggs, do you think there's gonna be a lot? Did the Easter Bunny come and give us stuff?”

Red smiled, “I'm sure he did, licorice stick. But take a breath and eat your breakfast first, okay?”

Cisco promptly proceeded to shove pancakes in his mouth, still trying to talk until Marie shot him a dirty look from under her perfect princess eyebrows, and Sylvester, who was eating his food in silence, elbowed him in the ribs.

Given the number of kids in the room who were related to Gluttony, breakfast disappeared ridiculously quickly, and Red and Britton had their hands full keeping up with everyone.

The instant the pancakes—and eventual bacon—had vanished, the stampede of Sinlings rushed to the back doors of the porch, which were thrown open wide by Zel and Brice, who had been doing the last minute preparations to make sure that the hunt went perfectly.

The gardens and lawn of the Sin's Mansion spread out before them, glimmering in the early morning sun, bright verdant greens, the newly sprouted butter yellow of the daffodils, warm reds and pinks and oranges from the tulips—and there scattered amongst those colors, were the glittering gems of plastic shining Easter eggs.

All the Sinlings just gaped, mouths and eyes wide for about 1.25 seconds. And then Miles, Troy, and Luci all started to make a break for it—right up until Red and Brice simultaneously shouted, “Waaait just a second.” The two dads made a brief eye contact, and Red just ceded to Brice, going back to stand with Britton by the door.

“All right now y'all,” Brice said, “Here's the rules. You've got 30 minutes to try 'n get as many eggs as you can.” He grinned, “The one who has the most at the end wins somethin' really cool.”

“Whaaat?” Miles whined, and Brice raised an eyebrow.

“You'll jus' have to win and find out.” The Sinlings clamored excitedly, “All right—ready, set...go!”

And they were off like a shot.

Everyone had their own basket—pink and blue and yellow and black for all the various Sinlings they went with. Addy's was red, with little pink ribbons threaded through it and pink fluff at the bottom to keep the eggs from knocking around.

There was a bet, instigated by Luci probably, on who could use their powers and abilities and skills to find the most eggs. All the Gluttony kids could practically smell the chocolate—Addy could for sure, he could feel the delicious candy in the spring-colored eggs all around him. Luci was hopping around the field like the Easter bunny himself—appearing wherever he saw eggs. At least, he did that right up until Miles snuck up behind him and tackled his cousin, yelling, “That's cheeeeeating!” and refusing to let him up until he promised to stop. This started a 3 minute long argument about the rules and who was doing better, which finally ended, somehow, with them agreeing to team up in their usual dynamic duo in order to beat everyone else.

Marie had dragged Tavros down finally from his cozy bed, despite the fact that the Slothful Sinling had said he didn't want to, and was pulling him around with her. Roy kept bouncing over to say hi, but every time he did, Princess Marie gave him an evil eye and said, “Go away! You'll get our eggs!” Finally, Roy just had to satisfy himself by looking out of the corner of his eye to make sure nothing was going on with his sister.

Conveniently, this slowed him down substantially in his plan to find eggs.

Troy and Paris were staying closer to the house, where the eggs seemed to be a little bit more dense, but also better hidden among the flowers. Troy, of course, slowly kept wandering closer and closer towards where Miles and Luci were, keeping an eye on them. Paris, meanwhile, was well on his way to winning, using his particularly good sense of smell to pick out the chocolate among the flowers—although he did occasionally get distracted by the delicious aromas from the tulips especially.

Somewhere out in the lawns, Cisco and Sylvester were running around, exclaiming and diving into bushes to grab their prizes, holding them up in triumph and generally having an excellent time.

Addy smiled to himself, glancing back up at the porch where all their parents were sitting, watching over them.

Dream was sitting on the porch swing, Parkere's head in his lap as the orange-hooded Sin watched through half-lidded eyes. Zel and Brice were lounging on the deck chairs, both having acquired fancy little drinks that they were sipping. Luci's parents weren't actually present—but that was all right because at this point Zel and Brice had basically adopted him as a fourth child, and besides, this sort of thing really wasn't Mikel and Dodge's cup of tea. Red and Britton were sitting on the steps, snuggled close to each other, and occasionally calling encouragement—Red met Addy's eyes and smiled, “Having fun, Gumdrop?”

Addy nodded, and went back to his meandering.

It really was a perfectly gorgeous day—the sun was perfectly warm, and everything smelled amazing. Addy was sorely tempted to just settle down and photosynthesize in the sun, but then his Gluttony reminded him that candy was within reach, and he went back to searching. He found one particularly difficult one, which had been delicately tucked inside a tulip of the same color, as well as one up a tree, which required some shimmying to get.

Thirty minutes went by remarkably quickly, and at the end, Brice stood up on the steps and counted down, as everyone scrambled to find any last eggs.

“TIME!” he shouted, “Everyone back to the porch—lets see who won!”

All the Sinlings scrambled back across the lawn, now in a race to see who could get back first (except for Tavros, who still had to be encouraged by Marie), and piled into a huddle on the porch, all comparing their egg quantities. It was pretty obvious that the true competition was between Marie, Paris, Addy, Sylvester and Cisco, and Miles and Luci—the others definitely didn't have as many, due to their various distractions.

“All right, all right,” Brice interrupted their discussions, “Count 'em up!”

And then there was silence, except for quiet murmuring as everyone sat down and began counting their eggs—or at least, there was silence until Miles and Luci got into an argument about who had which eggs in their collection, and nearly had one stolen by Cisco (Sylvester rolled his eyes and asked, “Do you have a death wish?”).

When all was said and done, though, everyone called out their numbers—and somehow, someway, it was Paris who came out on top, beating Marie out by only 2 eggs.

Addy grinned at his excited little brother, bouncing on the steps, as Marie glowered a bit.

“All right, here's the prize,” Zel had brought out a large box, grinning as she stepped across the porch, “First place goes to Paris.” Brice reached into the box and pulled out a glittering silver and pink crown. All the Sinlings—but especially the Pridelings—gasped in awe, as Brice set the crown perfectly in Paris' curly pink hair.

“Ah! It's beautiful!” Paris spun around, and dashed over to his parents, “Mommy, Daddy, do you like my crown, isn't it pretty? I'm like a princess!”

Marie looked even more sour, right up until Brice added, “And second place goes to my Princess Marie.” And had another circlet, only slightly less fancy than Paris'.

In fact, everybody got crowns—all in their preferred styles. Marie had pink gems set in silver and rose gold, Roy's was plain gold with blue, sturdy and respectable, and Miles' was dark silver with midnight blue gems. Tavros' was just a simple golden circlet, and Luci's was black with red stones. Troy's was dark too, with green accents, Cisco's was a simple black, and Sylvester's was simple silver with tiny little blue gems. Finally, Addy's was gold with both red and pink gems that were arranged somehow perfectly arranged to match the pink streaks in his hair.

All the Sinlings scampered around, showing off their Prince and Princess and King and Queen crowns, exclaiming to their parents and cousins about their excitement, and about the day—and then there was the excitement of the actual candy in the eggs, and before long everyone was also hyped on sugar and chocolate and delicious candy.

After a bit, Addy had snuggled up with his parents, contentedly munching on a butterfinger and watching some of the younger ones play tag out on the lawn.

“Did you have a nice Easter, Gumdrop?” Britton asked, fluffing Addy's hair.

“Mhmm...” Addy nodded.