Sun was not supposed to, it knew. But once the boy's cries softened enough that he could choke out a whimpering account of what happened, the Daycare Attendant became caught up. By design, it was caught between two unbearable transgressions: It had, ever since the After-Close Halloween Prank incident, been explicitly banned from the ventilation systems, yet that was where 4-year-old Ethaniel's Freddy Fazbear Super-bounce ball had ended up, and its nerves were specifically grated at by its childcare programs the longer it detected tears on the boy's face. Ultimately, it made a choice, and had one protocol be manually overridden in that second of pause.
There was no need to damage any vent grates, thankfully, since the one Ethaniel's prized ball had disappeared into was already hanging open by a single half-stripped screw. It was dark, but due to the lighting of rooms it passed leaking through the periodic grates it did not quite dim enough to trigger Sun's mode shift into Moon-mode. The Daycare Attendant flinched in anticipation of the raucous clang it made as it dropped down a level and landed on its palms. It couldn't take too long; with noise like this, someone in kitchen staff or a ticket-taker would report the strange bangs. Its head revolved around, scanning each direction down a four-way split. Something brightly-colored caught Sun's eye and it sunk down into the narrow passage, hip segment needing to revolve the wrong way around in order to fit. The ball! ... The balls, plural. With a stunned silence Sun ogled the veritable hoard of lost toys, wondering if these had all been here this whole time, and how indeed so many had ended up only in this dead end passage somewhere above one of the staff kitchens. Its long fingers gave a furtive fidget; it could finish with these pretties later-for now, it plucked out every one of the globular forms it could make out and squeezed them tight between the fingers of one hand. A full set! Thankfully not any more than that. It needed its other hand to climb on the route back out.
Ethaniel had sat, flopped and pouting on the ground on the far end of the play zone, watching and waiting where his mechanical playmate had vanished into the wall, ten feet off the ground. Gradually, a series of low clanks and thunks began to grow in volume through the dark, echoing tunnel of dusty, galvanized metal. The boy stared-half scared as this was exactly the sort of place The Monsters would come from, and how their nearing presence would be sensed-but hopeful that something much friendlier would pop out of the ventilation warrens. And, like a bright yellow ferret, Sun materialized in the shadows and popped out, one arm dragging itself with a shrill grunt of disgust through a large cobweb, the other arm's hand crabbed up close to its torso-clutched around something. The boy perked up.
"Oof!" The Daycare Attendant made the ten-foot drop in the form of a rolling somersault, springing harmlessly back up though studying itself very warily on all parts vent-grime and spider-silk were now clinging. It grinned down at the pre-schooler, "Well, it needs a bath about as bad as I do, but lookee what I found!"
The boy gasped; his own arcade prize-the best he could afford due to most of the cabinets and party games being geared towards the slightly older audience-sat in Sun's large palm with just a bit of dust stuck to it. Between each finger was the Super-bounce with the designs of the other band members-a Chica, a Bonnie, and even a much-coveted Rockstar Foxy. These were varying levels of crusty, but with the promise of a good disinfecting the full set was as good as new. Ethaniel jumped to his feet and clamped himself onto the heavy photosensitive fabric covering Sun's leg in a tight hug. The robot squeaked, knowing how much dead insect matter was likely to be on that fabric by now, but chuckled anyways.
"Ohoho... well, now we all need a clean-up. Hold on tightly-let's go!" Sun strode off, pace slowed owing to having a passenger, hand balancing four colorful orbs and a processor humming with a bright, odd fuzziness.
Very often, the Daycare Attendant's youngest charges were much too young to recognize that Sun and Moon were one and the same, albeit with programming inciting differing temperaments. Sometimes Moon found that its very closest playmates did not recognize them once playtime settled and dimmed into naptime. Sometimes, this had results which caused an odd stinging, overheating sensation in the torso motors which never seemed to have any somatic cause come maintenance checks-though not always. Most of the youngest seemed to prefer Moon's calmer demeanor, and so the trade-off was concerning, but not as devastating as that first rude instance.
As the lighting systems dimmed down and allowed the floating stars and planets and little swirls of twinkling Milky Way affixed to the rafters to begin glowing, Sun's radial sunrays retracted in clockwise order and the photosensitive portions of its form shifted over from bright yellows and warm beige and deep metallic maroon to a cooler grey, a soft navy, and a deep slate that blotted out half of its facial features. From a compartment just in front of where the sun rays stored themselves a deep whir of a spring-motor ejected the long, bell-tipped night cap and let it dangle over the back of its disc-like head. Moon took a long, graceful step down from the top of a stack of sound-maker cans that it liked to balance on during the "sun-setting" announcement of naptime. Ethaniel was sat quite close to this spot, staring up at the tall, celestial-themed robot. Moon lingered over the tiny boy's round face for a moment as it began to call out in a much lower and quieter but still clear and reverberating voice for the kids to begin settling in for their nap. It wondered for a moment if Ethaniel would understand it was still the peppery, excitable Sun who'd rescued his most precious possession from the voids behind the walls.
"Little one, do you have your blanket ready?" Its voice quietened. Its voice was nearly the same as the one used in Sun mode, though where in the light it chirped and cackled it now would only purr and sigh. The pre-schooler nodded, clutches tightening on the soft, fleecy cover-red, with green dinosaurs printed over it. "Very good. Do you have your mat in its place?" Another nod. "Such a nice boy. Alright now, go and get snuggly. It's time to rest."
However, Ethaniel looked puzzled, still staring up into the dimmed lighting of Moon's blueish, lamp-like eyes, only sitting down on the edge of the mat. "Mr. Moon?"
"Hmmm?" Moon's head turned to the side, "Do you need something, little friend?"
"I can't sleep without a story..." His eyes watered faintly as he peered up. Pitiable. A spike of anxious energy cut through night-mode's soft demeanor; Moon took a step nearer to the four-year-old and crouched down lower.
"Of course, sweetheart. I have a few storybooks around." It scanned to the sides of the naptime area. A few of the cubbies intended to hold onto children's shoes and other items had been taken over by the daycare's own supplies-one square packed with very thin books each more pictures than paragraph. Some of which were, er, "ill-gotten". Technically. If the management wouldn't supply more than a half-dozen, then the Daycare Attendant was going to resort to whatever means it had available to keep the small ones entertained and/or soothed. "What story would you like to hear?"
"Mr. Hippo..." He'd said it so quiet, only the robot's finely-tuned auditory sensors could pick it up very clearly. Moon cocked its head in the other direction. A rarity. Of course, it remembered, Ethaniel was very fond of the Mediocre Melodies. To a degree that it had to scold one of the older children for mocking his interest several times a day.
"Of course," Moon smiled, a long finger picking along the tops of the books' spines until it landed on one starring the oft-maligned character. "Here's one... now, would you c-"
Ethaniel needed no urging and had all but mountain-goated his way right into the robot's lap while it was crouched low enough to reach. Quashing its surprise, Moon managed to balance itself down into a cross-legged seat next to the child's mat and blanket. With its free hand it plucked up the large pillow Ethaniel should have been resting his head upon and scooted it down to where the boy could rest back against it; sadly, the cushioning within the jester pants' legs was probably not quite enough to comfortably rest a toddler on. At least, not for very long. Once settled, Moon let the book flop open to the first page, revealing the title.
"Goodness me-" it gave a low, breathy chuckle, "You weren't kidding about needing a story, hmm? Alright, here we go. This is 'Mr. Hippo and Orville Elephant Feed the Ducks'..."