10.3 - Unexpected Turnaround
"I'm willing to let you two stay." The woman stated rather abruptly, catching the animatronics off guard. Given her previously defensive and hostile reaction to them just a few short minutes prior, her unexpected turnaround in behavior was alarming. Suspicious, even. Particularly to the escaped nighttime attendant.
"What are you playing at?" Moon growled out, not willing to trust the woman. He wouldn't immediately trust a human to begin with - but her sudden change in behavior was a cause for concern. This was a trick. It had to be some sort of ploy to get their guard down.
"By all means, leave if you think you'll have better chances elsewhere." The woman retorted, responding to Moon's suspicion with a retort that sounded like a mixture of sarcasm and annoyance. Though, her sarcasm held value. Moon knew it. Sun knew it. The more that they thought about it, the more foolish it was for them to believe that they could just find somewhere to survive without needing to interact with people at all. Sun in particular was designed to be social and to look after people. Without anyone to look after, he had obviously been starting to suffer. Still, Moon remained uncertain. He was untrusting of this woman - but he had also been faced with the realization that there probably wasn't a better option. At least not right now. While he did not want it too, his body language revealed his uncertainty - and the woman managed to take notice of this. A quiet sigh escaped her.
"Alright, look. You are two rogue animatronics with a history of attacking people. If you don't want to stay here, then don't. I won't call anyone and report this incident. But what's your plan if it happens again? Any sane person would call the cops as soon as they saw you - yet alone if you attacked them. What then? I'm betting Fazbear is on the lookout for any signs of you. If someone turns up dead and it's obviously an abnormal death, it's gonna wind up all over the news. Then whoever is in charge of hunting you down will know exactly where to go to start looking." She warned, elaborating on the unthought of aspects of the animatronics rash and rushed choice to escape. Aspects that they certainly had not taken the time to think about, given that the plan had always been to avoid people at any cost. Neither animatronic could think of a rebuttal to her argument as they glanced at one another. Their lack of a response only motivated the woman to speak further.
"Beyond that, what the fuck did you plan on doing if you wound up getting hurt? People aren't harmless. There's hunters out here. All it'll take is one person with the right weapon. Even if you get away alive, what would you do? You can't repair yourselves. Unless you plan on using sticks and twigs." She added to her argument, admittedly somewhat incorrectly. The animatronics could partake in some degree of self repair and could repair one another to a greater degree. Still, she was mostly right. Without supplies, the ability to mend physical damage to their bodies would be useless. Again, this was something that neither animatronic had taken the moment to think about because their minds had been too preoccupied with other, more immediate issues.
"Then why would you help us?!" Moon abruptly snapped, admittedly finding himself a bit overwhelmed by the sudden confrontation of how helpless he actually was in the grand scheme of things. How helpless he would be if he actually needed to protect or rescue Sun from any of the dangers that the woman had just warned them of.
"You said it yourself! We're dangerous and people would be right to send us to our slaughter! Why would you be any different?!" He added, practically hissing out his words as he demanded an explanation from the woman. As factual as her words had been, he still saw no reason to believe that she genuinely wanted to help them. The woman offered a shrug at this.
"Have you ever heard the phrase 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth'?" She inquired, before going quiet for a moment to give the animatronics a chance to reply. Given the visible confusion found in their expressions, she was able to get her answer without need of them speaking.
"It's a phrase that basically means not to try and question the intent of a gift or a favor. Realistically I should be telling both of you to get the fuck out of my house. If I was going to be smart about it, I'd tase you both right now and call the cops. But against my better judgment, I'm giving you the opportunity to stay here. I won't call the cops. I can make arrangements to keep you safe. But you two will need to cooperate and follow my rules." She elaborated, pretty much telling the animatronics that they'd just need to trust that she had good intentions for them. Which, admittedly did not go over well. She only made herself seem less trustworthy.
"You're up to something." Moon retorted, squinting at the woman. Who again, merely replied with a lazy shrug.
"I have my reasons. That doesn't mean I have to talk about them... Chalk it up to fate and leave it at that for the time being." She replied, still clearly dodging Moon's attempts at prying the information out of her. While this did not sit well with him, he was ultimately forced to relent. Right now, they really did not have a better alternative. A secure place to stay and an ally was something that they would need in order to survive. While she was proving to be a rather suspicious ally, she was an ally nonetheless. Ergo the two animatronics would be foolish to accept her offer. Though that did not mean that they would do so happily. She was not behaving in a trustworthy manner and she knew it.
"... Fine." Moon muttered through gritted teeth, giving the woman a rather dirty look. He was not happy with his current situation. Not happy that he still had to rely on humanity despite wishing to get away from it. Not happy that he would ultimately fail to keep his promise to Sun without the aid of humans. Despite his ungrateful - but understandable - reaction to her help, the woman did not appear to be offended.
"Good. Glad that's settled then." The woman replied, wincing visibly as she began to move about on her bed. She stuck the side of her palm in her mouth for a moment to lick the blood off, before returning her unusual weapon back to its original place inside of her pillow. Sun made a strange face in response to this. Not so much disgust, but he definitely did not approve of her course of action.
"Not so fast." Moon retorted, crossing his arms as he watched her. "You talk big for such a little thing. You saw the flaws in our plan - now I get to pick apart yours, if you even have one. What do you intend to do if we're found here?" He inquired, speaking in a way which made it clear that he meant to pick apart her intentions just as thoroughly as she had done with them. She responded in kind by seemingly waving him off.
"You're going to be found." The woman replied, stating her words as if they were a fact. This did nothing to help the animatronics feel at ease. "However, that doesn't mean that you'll be found by people that might recognize you." She added, which admittedly confused the animatronics more than anything.
"Wh-aaaht do yOu meeeean b-?" Sun attempted to question what the woman meant by her statement, only for his uncooperative voice box to prevent him from doing so. Unfortunately he was still a bit stressed out. That meant that he would not be able to properly speak for some period of time. Still, thankfully the woman managed to understand what he had meant to ask.
"You said it yourselves. The public doesn't know what you look like now. No one really knows that you're two separate animatronics now, either. So outside of some very specific people, no one is going to recognize you if you're seen with me. I doubt that any of those people know who I am or where I live. Fazbear hasn't released any sort of news statement as far as I know. Probably because they can't risk any negative press right now. There's been rumors that they plan on trying to reopen again... So it stands to reason that as long as you stay here and don't go out of your way to cause problems, then it won't matter if anyone else finds you here. I'm only ever visited by coworkers or by hired help - trash collectors, grocery deliveries, those sorts. I've got money and can afford to buy personal animatronics if I want too. Once upon a time, I was going to do so. Very recently, all things considered... I haven't really told anyone that I changed my mind about that. Aside from one person, but that shouldn't be an issue. So it wouldn't be hard to convince people that you're custom ordered bots." The woman explained, elaborating on her reason behind feeling sound of logic. Were there flaws in her logic? Absolutely. Were they as glaring as the flaws that had been in Sun and Moon's plan to hide out in abandoned houses and hope for the best? Not nearly so. The risks appeared to be smaller. Ergo, the escaped daycare attendants were arguably safer by staying with her. So that appeared to be the plan. To just hide out and let their new 'caretaker' deal with the issues that they were ill-equipped to handle. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was the best plan that they had for the time being.