bullet points of What Sunny Has Been Up To to set up me getting serious about his Heart's Desire playthrough. this is everything you would have picked up watching the previous seasons of the nonexistent tv show that is the canon Drakonaverse in my mind. enjoy
(Nemesis endgame spoilers, Heart's Desire early game spoilers, warnings for kidnapping, physical and psychological torture, trauma, drinking)
gets to the Neath. tries to investigate his brother's death. doesn't get far. eventually hears about a detective investigating the same leads (Drakona), shows up to offer his help. becomes their sidekick. gets put on their payroll.
stays their main helper until around the Iron Republic. tails people for them, steals things, carries messages, does anything they need them to do. hauls them out of honey dens. takes Manners Lessons from them. they set him up with a stable source of thief/chaperone/errand boy gigs in Veilgarden, where the Bohemians quickly become fond of him
gets killed by Jack-Of-Smiles in retaliation for Drakona officially picking up the Smiles case. found nailed to the wall of the Veilgarden apartment Drakona gave him with three knives and the words LADY DETECTIVE DRAKONA scrawled on the wall in his blood next to him. this was Jack's opening shot. Drakona manages to keep Sunny's name and face out of the papers. he comes back. his first death. he can never go back to the Surface now
at some point, it turns out that his cat is a panther when she dreams and she goes into his dreams and leads him on weird adventures in this place called Parabola. eventually a friendly silverer tracks them down there, there is a minor altercation, and it ends with the guy deciding to teach Sunny glasswork. this is something he's studying on the side now. (hi @thedeafprophet and Alex)
when Drakona come back from the Iron Republic a shell of their usual self, he takes turns with the rest of their inner circle looking after them. they talk a bit. well, it's mostly Sunny talking to fill the silence. stories from his life with Charlie, since he has the most of those. they talk about their past some. there's not much he can do for them except be there, but he doesn't seem to mind them at their most bitter, most unpleasant, most hopeless, and they are intensely grateful.
they recover. they pick up Scathewick's notes.
they have a difficult conversation with him.
it takes him a while to process. Charlie wasn't one of the seven. the stab wounds, the petals — it was all a coincidence. he spent over a year in Drakona's service, thinking they were working for a shared goal, but now their revenge is underway and his is. right where it was when he first came to the Neath almost two years ago.
Charlie had been talking about the Marvellous. a story he heard from his new friends that almost definitely killed him. a card game where you can bet your soul and wish for anything. Charlie joked about playing. Charlie was great at cheating in cards.
Sunny investigates and finds out that the game actually exists.
if he can wish for anything, he can wish for his brother back. and then it won't matter who killed him.
so he decides that he wants in. follows the trail. gets his First City coins. he's already friendly with the Topsy King, one of his favorite thieves, so talking to him is easy.
Drakona carries on with their revenge. he helps. he's decided that it was worth it, regardless; their cause is a good one, they've already gotten this far, and besides, he's grown to care about them. he wants them to get their justice.
still, for all purposes the Firebrand is Drakona's new right hand man. that's just fine. for the next part of this they'll need the kind of resources Sunny never had, and the Firebrand has them. when it's time, Sunny and Bedbug (his cat) guide them to Beggar's Wake.
they come back, their revenge complete. Sunny's dues fully paid. he goes back to the Marvellous, looking into the Topsy King's past. uncovering the identity of Tristram Bagley. Drakona looks for something to occupy themself with. opens a lab at the University, names it after James.
at some point, they catch the attention of something behind the mirror. it's in their dreams, at first. then, shadowing their steps as they explore Parabola in a scientific settings. creeping ever closer. studying them.
one day, they don't come back from the lab. they've stepped into the mirror have haven't returned. Sunny and Bug are called. this is their area of expertise.
he finds them. kidnapped by a woman with the same face, their reflection. she hates them. she's been keeping them in Parabola, torturing them for — what end? just to see them suffer? doesn't matter. not his problem. they put together a rescue party.
they get Drakona back. one finger short, shaken, but alive. they're already joking about the whole ordeal, even as their hands shake. her name is Catherine, they say. she has their old name. they think for a moment and bestow upon her a title: The Desolate Bride.
the Bride flees when the rescue party arrives, bur stays behind to watch. she identifies the silverer who led them there. she decides that one day, he too must pay.
she's in all of their dreams now. poking here, prodding there. trying to turn Drakona's cousin, lover, friend against them. to see them for the monster they are. tries, fails, disappears, shows up again.
one day Sunny passes by Drakona's Parabola base-camp and hears them scream. he rushes over.
that was not Drakona.
Sunny goes missing. Drakona and the others look for him. he is gone.
a few days later, a stranger shows up. gets on Drakona's radar because he's picking up the Marvellous right where Sunny left off, arranging for Tristram Bagley's opera to be performed. he's charming, quick-witted, a smooth talker with the kind of manners Sunny never had. a roguish kind of charisma, but knows when to bow to his betters. immediately beloved in the court. wears a mask at all times.
he introduces himself as The Crimson Ace. Ace to his friends. Mr. Ace for formality. he supposes you can also try Mr. Crimson, though it has a weirder ring to it. the previous player candidate left London, you see, and told Ace he can pick up where he left off.
once you get close, despite the mask it's immediately obvious that this is Sunny's voice and Sunny's build, and if you still had any doubt, there is a terrified Bedbug sitting at the man's feet. she will not talk to anyone, follows him around and does everything he says. she's been told that if she misbehaves, the real Sunny will suffer.
still, when she sees Sunny's friends, she dares to make a break for it. slinks away while the Ace is distracted. explains what happened.
the Ace notices.
back in Parabola, Sunny has been alone in a dark room for. he can no longer tell how much time has passed. he can't see. he keeps hearing things that turn out to be not real.
the door opens. inexplicably, the room brightens, reality shifting to allow him to see.
it is Drakona.
he stares at them for a long moment.
"you're not real."
"no," they agree. "why would I be? the real Detective has forgotten about you."
"doubt that."
"you make Drakona feel bad, Sunny. they failed you. this doesn't make them look good." the not-Detective steps closer and closer, until they are just a few feet apart. "you are a loose end. a liability."
"that's not how they think."
"do you know how they think, Sunny? do you think they're searching for you? they can find someone else to carry parcels for them, I assure you."
"they — "
"tell me one thing you've done for them that no one else could have."
he doesn't know what to say to that.
he blinks.
it's Charlie standing in front of him now.
"you fucked up, Artie," he says. "I told you. you've got to earn your keep. you didn't do enough, and now no one's coming for you."
when he tries to turn away, the ghost of his brother does what he never did in life. he grabs him, and throws him against the wall, and when he slides to the floor, he kicks him.
he says: "I taught you better than this."
he says: "it's all your fault."
he says: "you were too busy chasing skirts to do what it takes to survive."
at some point, he leaves. others come. Drakona again. Iffy. his father. Charlie again.
they say the worst things they could possibly say. things he knows they don't think — didn't think — probably — but it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter that it's not them, that they're not real, because if they did think those things, they'd be right to. he couldn't blame them.
you forgot your place. you're nothing. you're a sick, ugly runt, begging for an excuse to pretend you're more than that. the most you could ever be to anyone is a pet. if anyone would even want to keep you.
they say those things, and then they hurt him. over and over. rinse and repeat.
Bedbug is told that her choice had consequences. when the others come for her again, it's way more of an effort to get her to cooperate. but, in the end, she does.
there is a rescue. the small cottage Catherine built for herself in Parabola is empty, front door wide open, and so is the basement. Sunny is curled up in the corner. it takes him a long time to believe that what's happening might be real.
they get him out. they'd gotten the Ace captured and propped up in front of a mirror beforehand. Sunny gets his body back.
something about him stays broken.
he knows those were illusions. he knows. he knows. but there's what he knows is true and what he feels is true, and they're both real, and he can't tell the difference. the same people who would try to comfort him scare him. he locks himself in the Veilgarden apartment where he died, sends Bedbug away. he can't take care of her in this state. he doesn't want to be to her what his drunk father was to him, a shambling, barely lucid, unpredictable presence.
it doesn't get better.
people visit him. he does his best to tolerate it, but sometimes he does just refuse them.
he spends his days either indoors or up in the Flit, away from everything. closed dark spaces make him nervous, uncertain he's not still back there.
sometimes he will see or hear something that is not real. a memory will resurface of something that never happened. he will become convinced of something that couldn't be possible. and then, after a while, it will go away.
one night, he comes back to the apartment with a bottle of Strangling Willow. he's not a drinker. it makes him violently sick, and then he blacks out, and when he wakes up he's sick again. it didn't help. at no point did he feel any better.
at least he knows he's in no danger of following in his father's footsteps now. he never wants to do that again.
Drakona comes over while he's nursing a headache. they talk. they get him to admit he can't stay in the apartment forever.
they know that it's hard. but they do think he should try. he should reach out to the others, talk to them. it might help to separate truth from fiction.
he's wanted, out there. they miss him.
he tells them what their own double said. they tell him that they've searched for him. that this should never have happened. that they are so, so, so, so, so, so sorry.
he can see that they're heartbroken. that's real. and he doesn't want them to stay like that any more than he wants to keep hearing the voices of everyone he's ever loved tearing into him, in the back of his mind.
he decides to try.
Drakona decides that they will kill Catherine.
it takes time for him to return to his life; to as much of it as he can, at least. he starts off small. letting people stay over. pushing against the memories of their doubles in his mind, confirming for himself over and over that this is real, that it's safe, that they're really here.
Bedbug takes on the role of service cat now. whenever he's not sure if something is really there, he asks her. if he's still confused, she does her best to talk him through it. they're slowly perfecting the system, but just having someone he can trust in this helps.
he moves out of his rat-rented attic. he might never be able to sleep in small dark spaces with skittering in the walls again. he moves to a different attic in Spite; one with a human landlady. he finds a new tenant for the rats. an urchin longshanks who'd just left the Regiment; with a good hideout and a network of friendly rats, she'll go far. he leaves her everything in the apartment he can't carry to the new place.
he stops his work on the Marvellous, taking time to adjust. one day, in the Flit, he sees something strange. he's sure he's hallucinating, at first, but Bug sees it too. they get curious. they check.
this is how they get introduced to the Glass.
author's note: perfectly aware that the Shroud is the cat-aligned option. however, I need Magician Sunny in my life. so I am declaring that he runs into a silverer he'd met in Parabola who got him out of trouble (similar to Alex) who is a part of the Glass. and that silverer basically has him do a few jobs to repay that favor, and he ends up involved with the organization for a while. picks up silvering lessons AND magic lessons. spends some time in Mahogany Hall also. uses this as an opportunity to get back on his feet, and then, as the second anniversary of Charlie's death comes along, he decides that he's dallied enough.
born Arthur Frost, to a couple of thieves who already had one older son (Charlie). spent his entire childhood being on the run in some shape or form. due to his albinism (poorly understood and managed by his family), specifically photosensitivity and poor eyesight, couldn't exactly participate in jobs the way his brother did; while Charlie was being trained as a burglar, Artie got trained as more of a conman and pickpocket, relying on his sickliness to catch people off guard. Charlie, who was four years older, didn't like that Artie was being treated gentler than he was, and took it upon himself to teach him the rougher sides of the trade. this often meant jumping him without warning to "teach him how to fight" and then telling him everything he did wrong. also passing their parents' lessons in handling locks and knives and guns down to Artie when they weren't listening. they got better together.
when Charlie is eleven years old and Artie is seven, their mother dies in a shootout. a job gone wrong. their father never recovers. they stop moving, settle down in a dingy room above a pub in some city. he drinks. takes odd jobs, sometimes illegal, sometimes menial labor, to make ends meet, but they're sinking. he gets into debt.
Dad Frost isn't abusive in the sense that he enjoys hurting his kids or that he even wants to. but he comes home, drunk and miserable, and the boys get in his way. Artie is less brave than Charlie is; he gets away with just having things thrown at him when he gets too bothersome. Charlie talks back. Charlie gets beaten. Artie watches.
the father sobers up. feels guilty. either tries to halfheartedly twist it into "teaching the boys respect" or just pathetically apologizes. promises he'll never do it again. promises he'll stop drinking. find the money to leave town again.
it's a matter of days before it all repeats.
eventually, at twelve, Charlie has had enough. he grabs Artie, whom he's basically been raising ever since their mother's death, and explains to his little brother that they should leave. that the old man isn't getting better and he's going to drag them down with him.
Artie goes, well, what can we do? we're kids.
Charlie goes no, Artie, we're thieves, and he's holding us back. we'll do better without him.
Artie believes him.
they take what they have, which isn't a lot, and they leave.
years down the line, they'll hear that their father was eventually arrested and jailed. as far as Sunny knows, either he's still there, or he's dead. he's not sure he wants to find out.
the brothers drift around the countryside. run their own little heists and cons to survive. sleep in barns, in the dirt, in empty houses when the owners are away. it's not the shiny life Charlie promised, but they have each other. neither of them ever speaks about going back.
Charlie is thirteen, alone, with nothing but his wits and a brother to keep alive. he does whatever he has to. he lies, he steals, he finds work. he steals again. lies again. he lies to Artie all the time. he has an answer for every question, a plan for every fear, and he'll come up with as much bullshit as he needs to make sure his brother thinks that he's got it. he wants Artie to trust him. to know he'll take care of them both.
it's hard. he snaps at Artie a lot, too, when he doesn't behave or asks more questions than he can answer. never hits him. he'll never be like their old man. he's better.
he doesn't make the same mistakes their parents did. he teaches Artie to fend for himself. uses up most of their first big score to buy his brother glasses that fit. teaches him to be alert, to bite back, to never let anyone think that because he's small and pale and scarred he's easy prey. they have a lot of enemies: older, stronger kids. adult criminals. "proper" adults who would take them off the street and separate them and put them in workhouses or orphanages if given the chance. they outsmart everyone. they keep going. they get better, make more money.
at twenty-five, Charlie is a handsome young man. freckled and red-haired like his mother, with the unwavering confidence of someone who's been on his own since twelve years old and is still alive thirteen years later. he smiles like an angel, lies like the devil, and he never drinks. women love him. other thieves respect him. his little brother shadows him everywhere: same face, thinner frame, paler. glasses. strange patchy scars over every inch of his skin visible. doesn't say a lot to anyone who isn't his brother, just glowers. fights dirty. where Charlie is spoken of with fear or concern or admiration or amusement, his brother is given an afterthought at best. "odd fellow". "quiet". Artie likes it just fine.
they fight more and more, as time goes by. Charlie is obsessed with the big score, money that will last him a lifetime. Artie keeps telling him that's a fairytale, that no money lasts forever anyway and anything close to forever is way too dangerous for just the two of them. this makes Charlie very angry. he's the one who got them out of that drunk's house, isn't he? he took care of Artie. taught him near everything he knows. he hasn't steered them wrong so far, so maybe Artie should shut up and be grateful.
Artie does just that. even if he has more to say, he knows by now Charlie won't listen. and if he can't talk him out, what else can he do? leave? he won't. his brother is all he has. his brother hasn't left him behind, not once, even when it was easier, even when other people told him to, and Artie won't leave him either. no matter what.
Charlie keeps taking the dangerous jobs. making fraught deals. sometimes it crashes and burns, and when it does, Artie's there to pick up the pieces. but when it doesn't, he feels like it gets him that much closer to that big score. the last one.
at twenty-nine, Charlie has made quite a bit of a name for himself. they say he fears nothing and no one. the Red Devil will kill anyone, take anything, go into the houses no other thieves will touch. no one is safe from him.
Charlie plays cards. dice, too. doesn't like betting on races and fights, says it's unsportsmanlike to bet on someone else's work. he says that because table games are easier to cheat.
he starts playing with an odd circle. Artie's not invited to these games, but he sees Charlie's friends a couple times. the people are strange. dressed differently. Charlie says they came from underground, that they have a big job in mind, and they want the best. they want them.
they fight about it. again. Artie yells at him. for once, actually leaves; not for good, just to walk off the anger.
he comes back to his brother dead on the floor. stabbed in the chest. there are flower petals stuck to his hands, and one on his shoe.
Artie says a prayer over the body, packs their things and leaves. when they find Charlie, everyone will say that his brother did it. he shouldn't sit around and wait for that to happen; he should track down those underground friends of Charlie's instead.
he grabs the petals. he doesn't know why. it's all he has to go off of.
from there, he eventually winds up in New Newgate: easiest way into the Neath. he'd been careless and went out in the sun again, right before he went down; he wears bandages over his face and hands to protect them from the filth in his cell as best as he can. no one in here seems to go by their birth name, so he shelves "Arthur Frost" and introduces himself as the first thing that comes to mind: The Second Son.
he notices that the bandages make people stay away. at first he thinks they're disgusted, but he sees other bandaged folks around: strong, quiet. something's different about them, and people think he's one of them. he decides to keep the bandages after his sunburn heals. he's used to keeping his face covered, anyway.
fresh out of New Newgate, he stumbles into a seemingly abandoned house in Spite. decides to crash there for the night. wakes up to a shit ton of talking rats asking what he's doing in their house. this isn't the weirdest thing that happened to him in the last three or so days. they work out an agreement: he hands over all of the stolen rostygold in his pockets as a week's rent, and is told that if he can get more, he can stay. they'll also take brass and glim and moon-pearls, and metal scrap.
the house belongs to the rats. Sunny gets the attic. it's small, but it's all his.
he settles in. makes connections with the local low-lives. there are a lot of kids here, living on the street like he and Charlie were. some of them form gangs, some strike out on their own. they don't like adults that much, but he's been one of them; he knows when to give them space, when to call bullshit, and which threats and bribes are going to work. he proves himself reliable. they like him. share the latest rumors, carry his messages. they know they can duck into the rat house if something's chasing them, and be safe.
The Second Son becomes Secondson, becomes Secondsun in the kids' mouths. it takes. they mark messages meant for him with a doodle of two suns. he adopts it as his own signature. before long, even the adult thieves he works with call him Sunny, Arthur Frost buried for good under layers and layers of bandages and new names.
he tries the trail of his brother's death, but it's gone cold. he keeps looking, but comes up empty; there's nothing.
eventually, he gives up. focuses on forging a life down in the Neath, making a name for himself in the underworld's underworld. maybe if he's better known, if he runs in deeper circles, he'll hear something; and, even if not, there's safety and profit in it.
one day he hears word of a detective. asking around about rose petals. something about murder.
he's on Lady Detective Drakona's doorstep the very next day, offering his services.
they accept.
there's something of Charlie in them. handsome looks, roguish smile. barely hidden obssession. but their troubles sharpened them in a different way than Charlie's did. they're... brittle. they drown their pain in honey. they never as much as say a mean word to him. when he shows up at a honey den (the fifth he's had to look through; they don't make a habit of telling anyone where they've gone) to pick them up, honey-mazed and barely aware of where they are, they just cling to him like a child. sometimes they laugh, or cry. he carries them to their cousin's doorstep.
he carries their messages. tails their suspects. runs their errands. feeds their pets when they're gone. he teaches them how to be quicker, quieter, how to pick locks and pockets. it's fun. he's a gentler teacher than Charlie. they ask him for advice on how to be seen as a man.
in turn, they teach him social niceties and observation. how to stay afloat among people of higher rank than he is, which is most of London. how to hold his own against threats more vague than plain violence.
they run in the artist circles of Veilgarden. sometimes their friends are in need of a not entirely legal favor; feuds solved or started by the disappearance of an heirloom, compromising love letters liberated from blackmailers' stashes. sometimes it's a matter of reputation, sometimes whim or fancy. they pay well enough. sometimes they hire him as more of a chaperone, a tougher companion to walk them through the dark alleys of Spite or even the less savory part of Veilgarden late at night. they treat him oddly, with a kind of condescending affection he doesn't fully understand. he's out of his depth more often than not. but they pay well.
eventually, the Detective will find out who's responsible for their fiancé's murder. they will be handed a list of names. Charlie's name is not on there. he was not one of the seven. Sunny will have to reckon with the fact that he's spent almost two years on someone else's revenge. eventually, he will decide that he doesn't regret it.
the Detective promises to look into Charlie's murder, but at this point, they both know the odds aren't good.
Sunny's heard word of a card game where you can bet your soul and win a wish. any wish. Charlie would have lost his marbles.
he looks into the rumor. it seems real enough.
he decides that he's going to try to get his brother back.
Bag A Legend sidekick variant:
instead of getting involved with Neathy criminals, Charlie gets into some other kind of trouble. he does not get stabbed, but now people are after both of them. Charlie considers their options and decides that they shoud make a run for the Neath.
they make it. they get to London. they settle in together.
one day Charlie comes home with a story about the Vake and the incredible reward for killing it, and Artie can hear the words before they ever leave his brother's mouth: this is it. the big one. we'll be set for life! all we need to go is kill the thing.
Charlie becomes a Vake hunter. Charlie doesn't drink, but for the job, he downs Black Wings absinthe. the voices make him jumpy, irritable. he paces, mutters to himself.
one day Artie walks up too quietly, startles him. Charlie whips around, swings. knocks him to the floor. Vake-blood absinthe on his breath, no recognition in his eyes for just a second, before he does know his own brother again.
he's more scared than Artie is. Artie isn't scared. he's worried.
maybe they shouldn't be doing this. or maybe they can take turns with the absinthe. there has got to be a better way.
Charlie won't hear it.
they keep going. Charlie learns to hunt. Artie's his right hand, his assistant, his arms bearer.
eventualy, the Vake kills Charlie. snatches him up, bites him into pieces and drops him back down into the city.
that's it for the big score.
(and this is the point where YOUR🫵 new-fledged Vake hunter can pick up an injured Sunny wherever he ends up after that Vake fight, learn that his brother was a hunter, recruit him as their own sidekick/source of information about Vake hunting and possibly start a beautiful friendship and/or romance and/or toxic codependency thing. experience his neglected dog loyalty! repeatedly retraumatize him by having him treat your pc's hangovers! have him worry about them when they inevitably get messed up by nuns or snuffers or the Vake itself! the possibilities are endless.)
