Chapter Text
When you’re asleep, you’re not aware of it. Time could fly by and you would be oblivious to it, none the wiser of the world moving onwards. When you’re asleep, time loses all meaning. There’s nothing for you there, in the still darkness of sleep, stuck.
But then you wake up. And you wake up to a world that has moved on without you and you’re still stuck.
What do you do then?
Circus Baby finds herself asking these questions silently as a pair of technicians poke and prod at her plates. Except instead of feeling like she had paused while time played, it was like she had begun something entirely new.
She knew her name, knew who she generally was, was aware of her existence - if she didn’t know those things, she’d be a lost cause - but beyond that was foreign territory.
“How you feelin’, CB?” One of the technicians looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.
“Fine,” Baby answered, but truthfully she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure how she was feeling, or how she was supposed to be feeling, but there was little point to saying any of this aloud, so she kept her response curt.
“You think she’s ready?” The other technician turned to the one that had spoken to Baby.
“Sure, man. Nothing else we can really do, she’ll just have to readjust.” He said, partially to his coworker but partially to Baby as well. She let him guide her out of the room she’d been in and down a long hallway. With every stride she took, he took three. With every step, a peculiar sense washed over her, heavy and dampening, like a hopeful foreboding. She had no idea what was at the end of the hallway, on the other side of the door. She could walk out to face things she’d known all her previous life, or it could all be new. It didn’t matter anyway. Everything had been stripped away from her, anything she faced from this moment on would be no newer than anything else.
The door opens to a large, relatively empty room with a checkered tile floor and a stage on one side. Sitting on the stage with their legs dangling from the edge is a pink and white fox, clad in a bowtie and a speaker on their chest. Standing next to the stage and talking to the fox was a tall, porcelain skinned ballerina with her blue hair up in a bun.
Immediately, at the first sight of her, Baby’s metaphorical heart skipped a beat. She felt sick and warm all at once.
Who is she?
The fox saw her first. Their yellow eyes widened, their jaw closing as if to stop mid-sentence. The ballerina instantly sensed the silence, and turned her head to follow the fox’s gaze.
Baby froze.
The technician patted her on the arm. “Well, have fun CB! Your friends sure missed you.”
My friends? She wanted to ask, watching as he walked away, but nothing exited her mouth. She heard footsteps growing close, and she turned to see the blue-haired ballerina standing just a few steps away. Her eyes were closed, but she faced Baby as if she was seeing anyway, mouth slightly agape and a hand outstretched, ready to reach for her. Baby didn’t move.
“Oh, Circus Baby,” She spoke, her voice like dark velvet. Before Baby knew it, she was wrapped up in a pair of slender arms. “I’ve missed you so much! I was starting to think you would never come back.”
Baby’s senses were smothered by the overwhelming sensation of being touched. She was stiff, waiting for the taller woman to let her go, but she continued hugging her.
The technician said that her friends had missed her. Was this one of her friends? Well, she sure is friendly.
But if this woman was such a good friend of hers, why didn’t she remember a thing about her?
“Uh… Who are you?” Baby’s voice cut through silence like a knife, and the embrace loosened. The ballerina stepped back, her brows furrowed. Baby, for a moment, was afraid she had offended her.
“You don’t remember me…?”
“No.. Um, I’m sorry.”
The ballerina didn’t speak for a few seconds, her head tilted downwards.
“Do you remember anything?”
Baby just looked at her. She knew without a doubt now that she and this dancer used to be close. Suddenly she wished she remembered. How many conversations and precious moments had fallen away from her? She felt sorry.
The pink and white fox had walked up to them. “What’s going on?” They said, looking at the ballerina.
“She lost her memories,” She responded, still facing Baby's direction. “Or they were taken from her.”
Taken?
“Oh.” The fox murmured thoughtfully, before holding out a hand in greeting. “Hey. My name’s Foxy. It’s good to meet you again.”
Reluctantly, Baby took their hand. “Hello.” She didn’t think it was necessary to introduce herself. Foxy gave her hand a shake before stepping back.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be in my room.” They said, promptly removing themselves from the conversation and walking back towards the stage, magenta-tipped tail curled behind them.
“Aloof as ever.” The ballerina said with a sigh. She probably would have rolled her eyes if they were opened. Then her eyebrows perked as if she suddenly remembered something. “Ah, right! My name’s Ballora.”
Ballora the ballerina. Foxy the fox. Made enough sense.
But Baby was glad to finally know her name. She glanced around Ballora to see Foxy disappearing into a door behind the curtains on their stage. “Will they be back?”
“Foxy? Well, they’re pretty shy, they’ll only show up if something important or interesting happens.”
“I see.” Baby still felt hesitant, and horribly out of place, like a dent in a system of pipes or a lost child wandering her father’s workspace. She wanted to talk to these people, to get to know them again, to be one of them again, but every instinct was screaming at her to back away and go to where it was safe, where she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.
But where to start?
She looked up at Ballora. “Soo.. I only know this room and the hallway to parts and service..”
Ballora seemed to brighten like sunlight through swiftly-drawn curtains. “Right! I’ll show you around.” Her slender hand reached out to hold Baby’s by hers, but she pulled back at the last second. She turned and began to walk through the room.
“So, this is Funtime Auditorium. Right there is Foxy’s stage, and Freddy’s is on the other side of the room.” Ballora gestured with her hand to the stage where Foxy had been earlier, draped with pink curtains and a ring of lights, and then across the room to another stage with purple curtains.
“Freddy?” Baby questioned, her gaze following Ballora’s hand.
“He’s the other Funtime. He’s very… enthusiastic. You’ll meet him soon.” Ballora explained, looking slightly uncomfortable. Baby decided not to ask anymore questions.
They made their way through the room, passing a small animatronic that Ballora called a “minireena”. Baby was kind of scared of it. Looking up, Baby realized that the ceiling of this room was made entirely of thick, metal pipes and wires. Listening closely, she could hear the hum of air travelling through them. Freddy’s stage was almost identical to Foxy’s, except for the color of the curtains, and a few boxes that held magic items, including but not limited to a deck of cards, a matchbox, and dice.
At the end of the room, there was a wall with a window at the top, and a vent at the bottom. A few feet to the left there was a door, which Ballora opened. The room beyond the door was the control module, where Ballora said a nightguard would come in some nights to watch the cameras. Baby thought that was weird.
“And this is my gallery.” The bluenette declared as they exited the module, and entered another large room similar to the Funtime Auditorium. It was considerably darker in there, and the dim stage lights were the only source of glow. Ballora opened her eyes, violet irises surrounded by night black, accustomed only to pure darkness. Baby couldn’t look away for a moment.
Ballora’s stage had blue curtains, and more of those minireenas were scampering around, accompanied by chubby, baby-doll looking things. “And those are Bidybabs. They were meant to accompany you, but then the…” She trailed off, looking away from Baby.
“What?”
“A-Anyway, over there is the breaker room. Freddy tends to hang out in there, for whatever reason.” Baby looked at the door on the other side of the room. Taped to it was a colorful poster with a purple and white bear smiling widely.
That must be Freddy. I wonder why Ballora doesn’t like him.
“Is he there now?”
“He might be.” Ballora responded simply, before walking over to her stage. Baby had no choice but to follow. “They were meant to accompany you, but then the…” Then what? Something must have happened that Ballora doesn’t want Baby to know about. She wanted to ask, but she also didn’t want to make her upset or uncomfortable. But don’t I have the right to ask? If something happened to me I should know the answer.
Ballora was sitting on her stage, letting a minireena hold her hand. Another one came up to her, and she pet its small, white head. Baby decided to join her, shooing away a Bidybab so she could sit down.
In the blackness, Ballora’s eyes emitted a soft glow. Baby wondered if her own eyes glowed the same way.
The entire building was filled with desolation, like a heavy weight threatening. Silence was deafening, a single lone sound was enough to send ripples through the vastness. Baby’s voice felt deafening as she spoke into the silence.
“What is this place?” And it spoke back to her through the echoes.
“A rental service. If a family wants a party here, they’ll send one or two of us up the elevator to entertain the children.” Ballora responded. “I’ve only been up a few times.”
Baby frowned. “We’re underground?”
Ballora smiled. “Yes. It gets horribly cold at night.”
Silence for another while.
“We used to be somewhere else, right?”
The ballerina glanced at her. “How do you figure that?”
Baby shrugged. “You talk as if you’ve only been here for a while…”
“Well, yes. We moved here about two months ago.” Ballora paused, eyes flickering across the black and white pattern on the floor, thinking. “... There was an incident.”
“Involving me?”
Ballora grimaced. “Yes.”
Baby was beginning to put the pieces together. Clearly, something had happened which resulted in both her memory being impacted and the change of location. If only Ballora didn’t seem so hesitant to tell her what had happened.
But Ballora didn’t look at her.
“It took us all a while to adjust. Especially without you. You were always sort of.. the ringleader, always kept us together and on track.”
“Oh,”
“Mmn. Lately we’ve all just… been doing our own thing. It gets lonely.” Ballora grinned, finally looking in Baby’s direction once more. “But you’re back. And I’m already feeling better.”
Baby swallowed. Swallowed words, feelings she didn’t know how to decipher yet. Everyone here had once looked up to her, and now she was the “new girl”. She wanted to deny it, uncomfortable with the idea of having any sort of status, but the girl sitting next to her was looking at her with such admiration, such warmth.
“Baby, do you.. really not remember anything?” Ballora’s voice was small and thin as she repeated her earlier question. “Anything?”
Baby shook her head, pigtails swishing in motion. “No. If I did, I would tell you.” Ballora’s eyes glimmered with what might’ve been hurt. “I’m sorry.”
“No, darling, it-” She caught herself, looking away furiously as she bit her lip. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s okay.”
Baby stared at her, at the wavy curls that crested the back of her neck, her pale silver skin shining dully in what little light there was.
She didn’t think she could take it anymore.
She placed her hand on Ballora’s arm, prompting the ballerina to turn and look at her.
“Ballora,” Baby said, almost pleading. “Tell me what happened.”
When she was met with only silence, she pressed on. “What happened to me? Why are we all down here? What changed ?”
If they were capable of producing tears, she thought Ballora might’ve cried, the way her face wrinkled and her eyes glimmered. She took Baby’s hand from her arm and held it in her own.
“You did.” Ballora half whispered, in confession. “It… was just like any other day. You were in your room, on your stage. There was a little girl in there with you, just one.
“And she died.”