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Window to the Soul

Prompt: Ballora is hiding a secret from William Afton.

William was incapable of love, but the closest he had felt to it had to be with his late wife.

She was a beautiful woman. Feisty, passionate, determined, defiant; everything that William would hate in theory had drawn him to her. It was as though she was the only one to keep him in line. She was the reason he even tried being a father, or even was a father, and the reason why he restrained himself in those years.

But she was gone, and now William was free to do whatever he pleased. He took advantage of others, he hurt his children, he slaughtered others' children, and he tortured anyone who got too close. Even the animatronics he created for his own means he got a sadistic pleasure out of tormenting.

But there was one exception. Not much of one, but a slight one. That would be a tall, ballerina styled animatronic known as Ballora. She was still victim to the controlled shocks when she stepped out of line, but something was different in his gaze, and in his touch.

It wasn't hard to notice how his hands would slide over her plates when he was tweaking with them. His fingertips would linger as they traced over the cracks. Sometimes he would take her by the chin and steer her face towards him.

"Open your eyes," he would command. She would obey, but as soon as he saw her glowing, purple eyes his own would glaze over with disinterest. People claimed that eyes could be the windows to the soul. If that was the case, then whatever William saw in Ballora's soul didn't hold the spark he wanted.

Though this didn't stop his attempts. He would continue to caress her at any chance. Sometimes it was him who dragged her off the floor when caught crawling away from her stage. She knew better than to lash out at him and instead went still, allowing herself to be moved onto a dolly, with his hands all over her while doing so.

William did not love Ballora, and Ballora knew this. She was awake and alive enough to know what he really wanted, and that was always control. Perhaps he sensed her weakness, as this body of hers was made so flawed that she couldn't even stand upright on her own feet unless situated on her track.

Yet there was one secret the ballerina did hold, and it was an amount of control so great that William would've been impressed by it. Not that he would ever know. She knew something that he didn't, and she knew that if he did know, it would give him his sadistic pleasure. Perhaps it would even make her life easier, but it wasn't worth it.

Even if she was forced to suffer the shocks and torment at his hands, she couldn't even give him that small slither of joy. Not after everything he had done to her, the others, and the children. So, she kept the secret inside and kept her eyes closed tight. She would never tell him the secret of what lay behind them.

Part of Ballora doubted he would even mind. After all, he had always adored her defiance.