Chapter Text
Harsh stamps on the ground as specks of dirt and gravel flew all around was mainly all you could hear as you currently ran down the old beaten down rural path, the tall foliage surrounded the almost never ending path like a barrier of a horse race track. Honestly the way your over the shoulder bag weighed down upon you right now didn’t really help the image as it felt like a lopsided jockey that had gotten loose mid race.
Finally you had found a new open position at this sanctuary of sorts as a intern, you had applied on a whim without looking too much into it as you mainly just wanted a quick plan to move away and luckily the place labeled itself as having free housing for staff along with no over the top credentials needed. You were shocked to say the least when they had emailed you back saying you were hired specially since they hadn’t even done anything like a phone interview.
So you hopped on the nearest train and after a week of moving across the country you finally arrived in the nearby city and today was your first day so you took yet another train that took about a hour to get there but once you had stepped off of the platform found out the only road that went to the sanctuary had been closed off due to repairs….
Which landed you in your current situation after a nice local elderly lady explained there was a beaten down path bit further out closer to the ranches. You mentally noted that maybe you should’ve focused more in PE during school in case this became a regular occurrence as your lungs continued to scream deep within your chest.
Finally you saw an incoming view of a very much out of place white building, it look rather extravagant amongst the nearby scenery while standing proudly with a dome top, glasses in front entrance and you’d guess three or four tiers worth of floors or at least windows. You’d expect a site in the middle of nowhere would try to be perhaps a bit more desecrate as it looked like a museum or some great entertainment building meant for a middle of a city.
Once the heel of your sneakers landed on the more stable surface of cement you finally took the moment to catch your breath. Sweat beaded down your helm while your hand fished for your phone and eagerly tapped on the screen to check the time.
9:45am.
You were still fifteen minutes early, not by much but still at least you weren’t late as you mentally thanked whoever had been nice enough to give you a somewhat late start.
Shaking a spray bottle of deodorant you busied yourself with wiping the sweat off of your face while also giving yourself a quick much more fresher spray, you didn’t want to come off looking like a slob… your eye bags were already bad enough.
Once you were sure you had freshen up, you began striding towards the two glass doors that stood between you and a new life. With one hand you carefully pushed it open as your other hand began to anxiously grip your bag strap with tension.
“Welcome!”
You recoiled as a freckled bubbly face of a woman filled your vision before she yelped at your aversion, her sapphire blue eyes behind a pair of triangular red glasses gave you a guilty look while she stepped back a bit. The ginger curls of her hair that weren’t tied in the ponytail had busied themselves by framing themselves around the curves of her rounder face.
“Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to cause a scare!”
The unknown lady rubbed the back of her neck as her peachy lips gave you a cheerful little smile. You let your eyes wonder for a second while visually inspecting her, the stranger wore a brown apron over the top of a red flannel shirt and well loved worn jeans… for a sanctuary she looked more like a the stereotypical ginger cowgirl and her somewhat built body only fuelled the imagery more.
“Oh-! Uh it’s fine! I just wasn’t expecting such a uh… warm welcoming?”
You tried to give her best smile you could muster in return but the slight rise of her brow told you that it seemed more sheepish than you would have liked to admit. She quickly tried to switch upon noticing your embarrassed look by almost immediately swung out her sun kissed palm.
“Well you might wanna get used to it if you plan on working here! I’m Agatha but just call me Aggie!”
You blankly stared between her bubbly expression and the offered hand while processing how quickly she spoke before finally shaking it while giving her your name in return which only caused her to smile wider as Agatha or well Aggie finally released your hand from her grip.
“Hmm… you’ll make a good addition! I mean- you already are! After all not many people wanna work in a rehabilitation site for damaged and traumatised animatronics! I mean it’s cruel how many people disregard them-!”
You would’ve felt more guilty if it wasn’t for the fact you could practically feel the blood drain from your features, you thought you applied for a type of botanical garden??? Did you coincidentally walk into a rehab facility waiting for their new hire as well?? This looked like a fancy art gallery not a medical building!
Your eyes darted towards the nearest sign which also happened to hang a few inches behind Aggie on the ceiling…
“Clematis Botanical Sanctuary” was spelt out in large bold letters but underneath in much smaller and thinner letters spelt out “Animatronic rehabilitation facility”
For such lengthy words it was almost criminal with how much smaller they actually were then the title or maybe it was your fault for not doing proper research… but shouldn’t a place about caring require like super important certificates and licenses to even apply for a position?!
“Hmm… you uh… didn’t read the site completely did you? You know you’re on probation still so if you wanna drop out right now you can-“
“NO! No, no, I still wanna try! I- uhh… I um…if that’s still ok…”
Aggie gave you a wide eyed stare at your sudden retaliation before it melted rather swiftly into a bubbly grin once more, it was oddly worrying how easily excitable the other was.
“Great! Well we’ve wasted enough time with introductions- we have a tour to start anyways! After all this is just the entrance! Well… also the main office but we still have a whole site!”
“Wha- WHAT-?!”
Instead of answering your bewildered panic she instead turned and headed towards the back of the building as you yelped, scrambling to match the much swifter steps of her black boots. You regretted not buying water earlier at the train station with how much running around this place had you doing in just the first actual day of your employment.
“What do you mean main building?! How big-“
Once the light of the back exit hit your face, you felt your throat clench shut while Aggie just giggled before moving to the side so you could better observe just how alarmingly expansive this so called “facility” was.
A pebble path lead up to a floral land mark that claimed it’s spot in the centre of a handful other paths, the land mark itself was like one of those massive medieval royal fountains you’d see in a town square but instead of sparkling water it was spouting various species of plants which almost mimicked the supposed to be water as vines curled up then down, large leaves mimicked the crashing of water back down in the lower pool and the flowers acted like the glitter you’d expect of spraying water hitting light.
Stepping closer you noticed the well crafted signs that pointed in almost every direction depending on the corresponding paths of each individual arrow, the stones of certain paths matched a similar coloured dot that stood out next to the specific sign of each.
Turning around in a slow circle you let your eyes skim the landscape as each path lead to allocated buildings way further in the site… it reminded you of a retirement village but with way more space and privacy seemed to be heavily involved with the design.
“I… exactly how many acres is this.. place?”
Turning back to Aggie you noticed how she stood next to one of the many poles of signs that guarded the fountain. She chuckled while the her hands comfortably sat in the pocky of her apron.
“Daunting isn’t it? Once you get used to it, this place doesn’t seem that large but…” she clicked her tongue as she mindlessly rolled her eyes probably trying to think of how exactly to answer your curiosity. “Hmm… I don’t really know, probably a couple hectares? I mean a grew up on a pretty big farm and this place is at least about thrice the size of it”
Upon seeing your horrified expression she simply bursted into loud boisterous laughter for a minute or so before swiftly reviving while wiping a stray tear away, she instead directed your attention towards the sign next to her while pointing to the arrow next to her head.
“We mark certain types of locations with a colour, this is towards the dorms which is marked with a yellow dot as it’s catered towards humans but animatronics can still go here it’s just not for them”
she then let her hand wonder to a lower a lower arrow in a different direction.
“This is the main entertainment plaza so it’s marked with a much richer orange as it’s for everyone not just us”
She stepped to one of the many other poles which had mainly red dots, she pointed at one of the many arrows as you noticed a slight sparkle in her blue eyes.
“This specific place is the Bonnie burrow, it’s one of many houses except this one is filled with mainly rabbit related animatronic so it’s marked in red but not because it’s dangerous but because it’s a location intended for animatronics… it’s also the house I’m a warden for so if can’t find me just ask one of my buns”
That somewhat explained the sudden glee she wore but you couldn’t help as your curiosity began to fill your skull with a handful of questions so without waiting another second you just blurted them all out.
“Uh… what exactly is a “house warden”? And why are all the paths marked with warm colours and not like.. I don’t know.. blue or purple?”
Aggie surprisingly wasn’t that phased by the questions which you figured was probably normal as she seemed pretty confident in her role as the tour guide, she no doubt was probably one of the ones who mainly showed newbies the ropes.
“Some of our bots have a hard time processing certain information due to past damage that has yet to be repaired so we mark everything in bright warm colours so they have a easier time but also because those colours catch human’s attentions quicker then most so it also helps us”
She walked back over to the first pole while waving for you to follow her, based on the direction compared to the arrows it seemed like she was leading you to the dorms first as you followed behind her.
“House wardens are the primary overseer for each household, hmmm… think of a head nurse! But we’re more like a roommate that only visits in the day unless one of the animatronics need a constant carer”
She looked over her shoulder to give you another reassuring smile which you smiled back in return, she seemed to like to check where you were at all times. Seeing that you were still alright she looked back in front of her with a satisfied hum.
“Of course there can be others watching the household but the house warden is just the primary carer so they’re also supposed to be the one constant factor for the bots so they know someone will always be there”
As Aggie explained you decided to have another scan only to notice more actual bots and people had began to appear the more closer you got to the dorms. The mechanical beings were mainly various species of animals but more so those from the main cast of the first original characters of the Fazco bots but not the same exact models and there was quite a few more humanoid ones mixed in.
You had seen that while most of them weren’t physically damage or at least not entirely, some definitely were which you couldn’t help the pity that began to swell inside your chest only to calm down once you realised none of them seem displeased about it rather some of the bots had a accompanying human which they were in the middle of various activities with.
Some were having picnics on the large spaces of grass far from others and without no actual food, some were catering to plants together and the more spry bots were even participating in mini sport games together. It felt like being at a local park instead of some sort of rehab.
You’ve never really gotten to interact with bots much before, you weren’t like a good half of the population that hated them, no, no, you just never really had that much of a opportunity to before but you couldn’t deny that you had started to grow somewhat excited by the utter joy some of the bots wore on their facial features… maybe Aggie’s easy to excite behaviour was contagious.
Almost like a bad joke you immediately walked face first into the other’s back as you winced and quickly attempted to apologise for the accident but the way she turned around made you wonder if SHE even noticed you walked into her.
“Also! Forgot to mention your belongings arrived about a week ago! Don’t worry we hadn’t looked too much at anything only checked for any possible damage to alert but left the boxes in your room- oh! And don’t worry we don’t have a roommate system unless you specifically request for one so it’s all yours!”
She pulled out a simple gold key which she happily handed to you for inspection. It was rather plain except for the number that branded the flat desk half, it was a bit surprising that it was a single digit six after all with the amount of people you walked past earlier and how large this facility was you had expected something at least with three instead of one.
Behind her sat what had looked to be two apartment buildings, both an appealing deep blue though one was slightly shorter than the other. Flower beds surrounded the very bottoms of the structures and the ground between both was mainly made of rectangular grey bricks placed in a circular motion. Aggie without any further prompting had began her stride once more towards the nearest building, which was surprisingly the shorter of the two and once again she eagerly waved for you to follow.
The hallways weren’t claustrophobic level but definitely didn’t have enough room for any large congregation which you suppose was somewhat reassuring as it meant it would be unlikely for any loud commotion among gatherings. The stairs were similarly sized but definitely more wider as a ramp accompanied the stairs, it was nice seeing things like wheelchair accessible… you think it was for those with wheelchairs or at least you hoped it was.
Your door was the first one next to the stairs meaning you’d no doubt hear any and all traffic but it could be worse. Aggie leaned back as she once more held the door wide open for you allowing you to see the rather decent size of space, you weren’t expecting anything too big but the apartment itself wasn’t half bad.
There was a large space in the middle as the soft brown outskirts were mainly claimed by cardboard boxes, the wall to your right had a inbuilt book shelf with you noticed had a small group of colourful books while the wall to your left had a tiny kitchen definitely meant for one person. Aggie upon following your gaze started another almost NPC like explanation.
“The kitchens aren’t that big mainly because higher ups want use to utilise the entertainment plaza but don’t worry you can still eat alone if you want!! But there is a small selection of cafes, restaurants and even a small cafeteria in the entertainment plaza and if you don’t like any of that you can make requests for certain groceries or still go to the nearby city for a quick bite if nothing catches your eye!”
She joyfully bared her teeth before turning and gently closing the door once you were fully in the apartment which you gave a quick “thank you” to.
Next to the kitchen lead to what you assume was the bathroom from the tiles and tub you could see in the agape white wooden door. Looking straight forward across the main space, you could see another room with a large rectangle full body mirror which vaguely reflected the image of surprisingly a already made up bed.
“Um… did someone forget their books or…?”
You pointed towards the mysterious group as everything in the room had seemed to answer itself except for the odd sighting of said objects, you also noted that none of them matched colour wise even though they had similar colours they were still unique combos of two.
Aggie clapped her hands together before stepping forwards and grabbing said books and then moving over to splay them across the counter top. She moved a pink one branded in golden trims with a heart decorating its spine to the side followed by putting a similar teal one with a music note instead of a heart on top of it. In total there was a total of at least eight present but something in the back of your head told that there was chance of that changing.
“Say hello to your bots! Or well their files- we had to change to hard cover notebooks after a mangle accidentally fell on a handful and absolutely shredded them- but don’t worry these ones can handle stress way more easily! They’re even decorated towards each one!”
She randomly picked up a deep blue one with icy blue trimmings which oddly fitted the similar sewed white text labelling the book for a “Winter” followed by a pale snowflake on its spine.
“We do encourage you getting to know them first but this is just so you have a bit of a head start! Oh! And not to pressure you! But I personally would try your best to meet them alphabetically, kinda lets the latter ones prepare for you themselves but again that’s just a suggestion!”
She carefully placed the cool coloured book back amongst its catalogue before slipping her hands back into her apron’s pocket while idly swaying back and forth between the ball and heel of her boots.
“How about we get you changed now hmm? After all you still have yet to physically see your house let alone try your own apron”
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
You patted down your apron as you mindlessly followed behind Aggie once more, you know Aggie was just being a tour guide but you couldn’t help but internally pray that you wouldn’t have to follow your own house warden like this… you also were half distracted with mentally screaming at yourself as you had forgotten to exactly ask Aggie what type of bots you would be stationed with since she, herself told you that she mainly catered for Bonnies and other rabbits.
It was a bit concerning as the more you followed along, the more other houses seemed to have fade as if this specific one was purposefully isolated from the rest… it was probably just unfortunate mapping out done forever ago or maybe doubled as a boundary marker after all you doubt the sanctuary ran on forever.
“So… what am I exactly meant to do? Like for the bots? You mentioned it was like being a extra roommate”
Aggie had slowed down finally after the both of you had left your new apartment instead she chose to walk alongside you. Her eyes glanced in your direction as the two of you walked alongside each other.
“You’ll be doing things like noting any differences while under your care but you’ll also be making sure they actually attend to at least one “ chore” per day… oh! I forgot to tell you what chores are!”
She stopped and fully turned to face you completely as you instantly froze at the sudden halt, you slowly turned to face her completely just like she had towards you.
“We call them “chores” to seem less scary but of course we can’t just fix them all for free as much as we want so instead of having things such as gardeners for the plants and so forth we put it as one of the daily jobs for the board in the plaza, each time a animatronic finishes a job they take the paper to the house warden which they sign off”
She then raised her two pointers up as she continued her lengthy explanation.
“Certain jobs reward with more or less credits, credits are like allowance for the animatronics here and with enough credits the government safety branch that runs this here facility will pay for repairs depending on what the bot has and what they need repaired first”
She then made a switching motion with the two fingers which you had assumed was meant to represent the swapping of credits for actual money.
“Though of course this also still applies for those that just want upgrades in general or anything overly specific that needs money so it’s not only for repairs”
You nodded your head along as you busied yourself with processing every little detail till you were certain you had mentally wrote everything down.
“So I’ve gotta make sure they at least get a bit of credit each day?”
Aggie shook her head in agreement before deciding to return to your earlier question.
“Other then that you’re basically a hired friend for them, you make sure their happy and safe instead of accidentally hurting themselves or others! Sounds scary but that’s why I think of it more like being roommates rather than catering towards a paranoid government!”
The woman casually shrugs it off before starting her tour was once more not really giving you a second to ask more but honestly if you were her you’d probably be sick of how many questions the newbie has asked in their first day.
You were starting to get somewhat sick of all this walking… fortunate for your duo as it looked like you were nearing the planned destination. Up ahead stood another similarly built building to the dorms except this one was more like an overly large three tier home with exposed drey bricks as its choice of exterior. On the third floor you spotted a balcony that stood directly above the entrance and in between the two was a room with a bay window, there was also matching matching rooms on either side of the middle but most were too high to actually see into or the curtains had been drawn to a close before you had arrived.
There stood a way more impressive garden out front, it reminded you of the ones you’d see in depictions of tea parties except way more colourful with way more ranges of flora such as the moving spiking yellow one-
…
That was not a plant.
The bot had their back towards the both of you, unaware of your incoming approach. Didn’t look animal like at all rather they seemed to eight pale yellow rays that faded to a smooth orange with another set of six much smaller pointy green ones with sharp pink tips. You could vaguely made wiring out on the backside of their rounded disk of a faceplate but the more interesting part as their outfit.
Their attire consisted of a off white coloured button up that had a decal you could barely make out from the back that connected in the said back to form two butterfly like tailcoats, they wore high waisted silk dark pants of sorts with slits on the side while the bottom half was decorated in some sort of pink and green floral design.
They had gold tipped heels black heels with white socks that finished somewhere under the pants you couldn’t see, the gloves were a similar shade to the pants except instead of having a floral design they had similarly coloured ribbons tied around their wrists while the gloves had no coverage for their fingers showing off the pale yellow digits that ended in a similar reddish orange to the rays… they almost look pink.
“Anatolia!”
The animatronic flinched letting out a high pitched squeak before flipping around to greet the both of you, her- you assumed she was feminine based on the name- face was similarly coloured like the rest of her body except the face split in a crescent with the yellow acting like the moon and the orange the dark side. She honestly reminded you of a sunrise and the little hot pink freckles and painted on blush complimented the idea though she had striking bright emerald green optics with curved eyelashes.
Her front side wasn’t much different to her back other then you could see the rest of the butterfly on her shirt along with the dark pink ribbon around her shirt collar instead of a tie, the fake colourful flowers pinned around her attire and the cute pink hearts on her pant’s knees. You also noticed she seemed to wear dark pink eyeshadow and that’s not to mention the slight darker shade under her mouth as if she painted subtle lips on herself.
“M’lady Agatha! Shouldn’t you be with the bunnies?”
The bot greeted the warden with a friendly tone but there was a slight anxious tone that could be heard if you listen closely, Anatolia seemed rather tensed by the unexpected visit but then again you would be too if someone came unannounced.
“Sorry for the sudden drop in, Till! I was showing your new house warden around!”
You froze, Anatolia froze, Aggie had made it out like you were an intern, she hadn’t mentioned once that you would be the head overseer… maybe you should’ve guessed when she handed you the notebooks? But she seemed fine if you wanted to leave! What about the previous house warden?! Was there even another human stationed at this house?! You stared in horror at Aggie.
Anatolia looked to share a similar devastation as her bright green eyes seemed to shrink and shiver while looking down between the both of you and then you felt guilt immediately flood your system when she finally spoke up with the tiniest most softest voice.
“Oh…”
Aggie once more was simply just unfazed by the entire thing as she continued to speak without another worry in the whole word.
“Couldn’t leave you guys to your lonesome and don’t worry- we did note tensions some of the boys have with other current staff so we got your lovely group a completely clean slate!”
Aggie enthusiastically gestured towards you with arms full on at as if trying to persuade Anatolia to cheer up by the explanation but all the animatronic could do is sheepishly smile as it seemed the statements had only further stressed her to the point her rays began to slowly shrink deeper into her faceplate.
“Are intern here has basically nothing on them! They’ve never worked with bots before even so you guys can easily teach them the ropes while helping them understand the boundaries! They don’t even know anyone in the facility so there’s literally no excuse for the others to complain now!”
Aggie surprisingly became a bit more desperate but then decided to simply push you forward causing every muscle to stiffen in your body and- oh god was the bot this tall before? She just keeps an untrusting eye directed towards Aggie.
Your fellow human gave you one final pat on the shoulder as she let out a little bit too gleeful of hum while she turned on her heel to rather quickly sneak off.
“You’re the house warden for our dear daycare attendants! So if you see any around the facility just know they’re yours and introduce yourself! This unfortunately marks the end of our tour but don’t worry!! Anatolia is a sweetheart so she’ll show you around!”
And with that Aggie was gone, looking up at Anatolia did little to calm your nerves as she looked down at you in a very noticeable mix of concern and even panic all from your presence alone… hopefully the others are more open to your existence then she seems to be towards you.