Chapter Text
Marcy stepped out of her car, rubbing her eyes as she closed the door and locked it. She really wasn't looking forward to work today; she had spent most of the night playing a new chapter of her favourite game and couldn't bring herself to put it down until the sun had started to come up. She managed to get in a solid two hours of sleep, better than nothing but still not enough to be able to interact with the customers as energetically as she should be. She could try and sneak in a few minutes of sleep in between customers, but the car park was already filling up an hour before the park was due to open. Of course it would, she reminded herself, it was the weekend. She sighed.
She made the trek across the car park to the staff room, opening the door and making her way to her designated storage locker. Two of her colleagues were in the corner having a quiet discussion, but she didn't know them that well so she didn't think to greet them as she put her things away and grabbed her uniform jacket. Marcy only really had one friend at work, and he was usually out early testing whatever ride he was stationed at for the day so they were rarely in the staff room at the same time (they even had different lunch breaks, which was rather unfortunate).
She locked the door of her locker and slipped her jacket on over her shoulders, suddenly becoming aware that the two in the corner had stopped their conversation. She didn't think much of it, until one of them said something that grabbed her attention.
"Hey, you're Marcy, right?" they asked, looking directly at her so it was obvious she was the one being asked. Marcy had no idea how they knew her name considering she barely recognised either of them, but she answered anyway.
"Yeah, why?"
"Apparently one of the mascots needs help with their costume, would you be able to? We need to go and start opening the cafe," they continued, referring to themselves and their friend who nodded. Great, the one thing she wanted to do today was help someone she didn't know with their costume whilst she was running on two hours of sleep. She wasn't going to turn it down though. There was nobody else in the staff room, she didn't want to leave them in the dressing room alone because she decided to be selfish.
"Uh, sure," Marcy finally accepted, "where's the dressing room?"
Her colleague pointed her in the right direction, and soon the two left to presumably go and do their job, leaving Marcy alone to do hers. She inhaled slowly, before making her way down the hallway in the direction she had been pointed towards.
If Marcy was honest, she was extremely jealous of the performers at the small theme park she worked in. It had been an aspiration of hers ever since she was young, it sounded like a dream to be able to get on a stage and have fun, but there was one thing that stopped her every time.
Fear.
She was so scared of messing up or being judged that she never actually tried to achieve any of her dreams, always denying or chickening out of any opportunity she was presented. It sometimes felt like was trapped, constantly wanting to achieve something but not being able to actually get out there and do it.
Marcy instead resorted to working a retail job at Auratopia, a theme park pretty local to her which she made frequent visits to as a child. It wasn't the most glamorous thing ever, she didn't necessarily enjoy interacting with the customers, but it paid enough that she was able to fund her humble living style of a small apartment and frequent takeaway meals. Being there also meant that she was able to see others living her dreams, as a main factor of the park were their many performances with both mascots and human characters. While it would hurt many others to have to be around others who were able to achieve things they never could, it honestly brought Marcy comfort. She was able to live vicariously through them, in a way. It would be nice to achieve her dreams one day, but she knew that was very wishful thinking.
Marcy shook her head to get rid of these thoughts; she knew she would never be able to get rid of her fears, what was the point in lingering in her past dreams anyway? The possibility of any of them happening was long gone now. She needed to focus, she had finally made it to the dressing room. After a lot of overthinking and convincing herself, Marcy managed to knock on the door (she knew she was in the right place, given that a large sign was present on the wall above).
"Thank goodness, someone's finally here," Marcy heard someone mutter from inside the room, before they raised their voice slightly. "You can come in! I don't bite, I promise," they giggled.
Alright, she couldn't back away now. Marcy pushed open the door, and was met with a view she wasn't exactly expecting to see.
A woman, one who looked to be around one or two years older than Marcy, was stood in the middle of the room. She was dressed in half of a mascot costume, the head resting on her vanity table. Her hair was long, curly and ginger, and as she turned around Marcy caught a glimpse of her gorgeous blue eyes (at least, that's what Marcy's first thought of them was). She tried to smile, though she looked quite uncomfortable, and Marcy soon remembered why she was there in the first place.
"Uh, I was told you needed some help?" Marcy said, moving further into the room and closing the door behind her, "I'm Marcy, by the way."
"Oh my god, yes," the woman replied, sounding exasperated but somehow still managing to sound happy, "I'm so glad you're here, I'm Aubrey!"
Marcy gave her a small wave as she began to feel a little warmer, a fact that she blamed on the room having no windows. "I'm usually fine with getting ready by myself, but I feel really out of it today for some reason? I'd usually ask one of the other performers for help but none of them are here yet," Aubrey explained.
"I just need you to help me with the zipper, it's on my back!" she continued, turning her back to Marcy to reveal the zipper of her costume, which looked to be stuck around halfway. Marcy zoomed forwards to help her with it, as Aubrey continued to make some small talk.
"Don't tell anyone, but I think the reason why I'm so out of it today is because I barely slept at all last night," she said as Marcy started to do up the zipper.
"Oh, why?" Marcy asked, fiddling with the zipper as it reached a particularly sticky spot.
"A new chapter of a game I like came out, and I was so desperate to avoid any spoilers that I played it all in like. Four hours. Biiiiig mistake," Aubrey explained, laughing again but sounding a little more like she was embarrassed at herself.
"Oh my gosh, so did I!" Marcy replied as Aubrey made a little shocked noise in reply. Marcy's stomach fluttered a little at the sound, but she ignored it.
"No way, I thought nobody here even knew about it! It feels like we were destined to meet," Aubrey exclaimed in shock as Marcy laughed awkwardly in reply.
"Haha, yeah." She finished doing up the zipper, standing back a little. "Alright, I think I did it right."
Aubrey moved around a bit, seemingly checking to make sure the costume was secure and comfortable enough. Appearing satisfied with Marcy's work, she turned back around to face her, clapping her costume's paws twice.
"You did it perfectly, thank you so much! I don't know what I would've done without you," Aubrey said gratefully. Marcy flushed a little, looking everywhere but Aubrey's eyes.
"It's no problem. If you need any help again you can let me know," she replied, giving Aubrey a smile and a nod.
"Oh, absolutely."
"I, uh, I need to go and get the shop ready so I should really get going," Marcy apologised, pointing towards the door and shuffling awkwardly towards it.
"Oh, no worries! See you around?" Aubrey asked, causing Marcy to freeze her shuffling.
"Mhm, sure!" she said, giving Aubrey one last smile before stepping out of the door in a little bit of a rush, closing it behind her.