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Gangle had never been an early riser in the real world. She'd been well accustomed to late nights and mornings started by grating alarms. Now, though, things were different. Though there was no way of knowing what time it was, or if it was even morning at all, she'd gotten into the habit of being the first person in the tent to be up and ready each day.
There were a few reasons why she now always woke up so early in the Circus. For one, it was much nicer than starting her day being pestered by someone else or being dragged off to an adventure before she was even fully awake. For two, it meant she got to enjoy the mind-quieting comedy mask just a little longer, since it didn't respawn until she was asleep each night. But the most important reason, the one that convinced her to actually keep the habit, was that she hated for anyone to see how she looked when she woke up.
Gangle woke up on yet another digital morning, the same as thousands before it. For a brief moment she thought that her back hurt, then she blinked and remembered she hadn't had a spine in a long time. She stretched, not to awaken joints or muscles but to smooth out the twisted ribbons of her limbs. She was a restless sleeper, even on the somewhat rare nights that went by without bad dreams. She wondered if she would be so tangled up every morning if she somehow managed to stay more still.
Standing without collapsing took a couple of tries despite the near-lack of gravity that applied to her. Once stably up on her 'feet', Gangle made her way to her mirror. The first time she saw her body tangled and twisted into knots, she'd screamed and alerted the whole Circus. Now, she just frowned and set to manually putting herself back into shape.
She'd barely made any progress when a knock at the door made her jump.
"Just a minute!" she called, her voice wavering a bit. Nobody polite enough to knock was usually up this early.
"Alright, take your time," came Zooble's voice from behind the door.
…Ah. Of course it was Zooble. Gangle hesitated a moment before going and letting them in regardless of her tangled state. They were the only person allowed to see her like this, precisely because they didn't care. They glanced down at her body for barely a second before tapping a 'kiss' to the side of her mask.
"Morning," they muttered, obvious tiredness still clinging to their voice.
"Morning." Gangle smiled. "You're never up this early."
She chose not to think about how 'early' was a moot term when time was such a slippery thing here. It was too early to be thinking about that.
"Couldn't sleep," Zooble groaned and shut the door behind them. "Like, at all."
All-nighters weren't uncommon for Zooble, which Gangle knew very well by now. She waved them in the vague direction of her bed as if to say, please sit down , and went back over to the mirror.
"Sorry, you caught me right in the middle of sorting myself out."
Zooble hummed, shrugged, then sat down and watched as Gangle continued shaping her main ribbon into its usual spiral. She could see them behind her in the mirror, looking completely indifferent to her mess of a body, and she was grateful. Reshaping herself like this was something akin to muscle memory at this point, which meant she could keep stealing glances back at Zooble. They looked considerably more… coherent than usual today, with pretty much every part being some shade of pink or yellow.
She waited until she'd finished her little 'morning routine' to turn around.
"You look nice," she said. She wouldn't have said it if not for her comedy mask.
Zooble looked at the floor. "I was… just really bored last night."
Gangle wasn't quite convinced. Sure, it wasn't unlike them to go digging and sorting through their Zooble Box™ out of sheer boredom. But a part of her thought, or wanted to think, that they'd gotten 'dressed up' just to see her. She didn't ask about it, and she didn't say that they reminded her of strawberry lemon candy, no matter how much she wanted to.
"Well, how do I look?" Gangle asked and struck a faux-dramatic pose.
"...Like you always look?" Zooble answered tentatively.
Gangle couldn't help but laugh a little at that. It was about the best she could hope for, after all. She knew and loved how little Zooble cared about her avatar. She went and sat with Zooble on the bed, leaned against them, and smiled.
"I think I see why you like to be up so early," Zooble said.
And, at least for a little while, it was quiet.