10.4 - Tense Alliance
"Now. If we're all finally in agreement, I have other issues to deal with." The woman stated, trying and failing to resist letting out a groan as she moved to get off of her bed. Sun responded to her obvious pain caused by her very obvious injuries by moving towards her. It was in his nature to want to tend to the injured. Which made it admittedly distressing when the woman abruptly held her hand up to command him to stop.
"Do not touch me. Please." She uttered, speaking through gritted teeth while attempting to maintain something of a polite tone. She wound up sounding both angry and miserable at the same time.
"B-but yOur hurt!" Sun stammered out, his voice box still malfunctioning somewhat but not as badly as it had been just a few minutes prior. He could at least form full sentences now. The issue now was controlling his pitch.
"Yes. I know. Your buddy over there is the one to thank for that." The woman replied, carefully pushing herself off of her bed. She wobbled slightly as she got to her feet, but thankfully did not stumble.
"I'm in a lot of pain right now, because of an animatronic manhandling me... So I don't want to be touched by any animatronics right now." She added, reiterating her point. After having been attacked by Moon the night before - and threatened by him shortly after waking come morning - she did not feel particularly safe. Not around Moon or around Sun, the latter of which arguably had her best intentions in mind.
"I-I'm s-s-orry..." Sun apologized. Both for the incidents that had transpired in the last 24 hours and for not being able to make her feel safe. While little blame ultimately fell onto him, he was the animatronic most prone to being apologetic. The woman offered a sigh in response to his apology.
"Look. If you want to help, then follow me downstairs. I'm willing to bet that I can't get my luggage out of the trunk." The woman suggested, all the while making it clear that she wouldn't completely deny Sun from giving her help if he genuinely wanted too. This admittedly helped the friendlier animatronic perk up. He liked being able to help people and legitimately felt guilty over the fact that she had gotten hurt. He knew that she had only gotten hurt because Moon wanted to protect him.
"O-Okay~!" Sun replied, eagerly following after the woman while respecting her personal space. Granted, he paused partway through, having abruptly realized something.
"Uhm... Excuse me, ma'am. I don't think we ever got your name?" He inquired. Admittedly he thought that he knew what her name was - maybe, possibly. The problem was that he had only heard what he thought might be her name once or twice, over the speaker of her phone while hiding in the Livingroom last night. So he was not positive. In response to this, the woman also paused. In all of the chaos, there obviously hadn't been a chance to make proper introductions.
"Ah..." She made a rather unsure noise, as if trying to decide whether or not she would give an honest answer. "Ayala. My name is Ayala." She replied, glancing back at Sun as she did so. The animatronic responded in turn by offering a shy smile. Okay, that was not the name that he had thought he heard last night. So it was smart of him to have properly asked.
"Ah~... Uhm. I-I'm Sun! But... But you already knew that~..." Sun replied rather awkwardly, not quite sure of how to socialize with Ayala just yet. A lot of stressful things had happened within the last 24 hours. The woman had gone from being absolutely terrified of them, to being angry, to be emotional, then to being concerningly calm. Until suddenly she became fine with the idea of Sun and Moon remaining in her home. All over the course of what couldn't have been more than a couple of hours, if that. Beyond all of that confusion, he had not had any proper interactions with people for years - and he was specifically accustomed to working with children. Needless to say, he was well outside his element - and it showed.
"Yes, I'm... I'm quite familiar with you two." Ayala responded, somewhat awkwardly in her own right. Though, the reality was likely that she was attempting to get herself down the stairs without further injuring her already damaged body. There were some natural movements one made while stepping down a flight of stairs. Such as lifting or swaying the arms to maintain balance - which only agitated her shoulder injury further. Moon silently made his way out of the woman's room to follow after her and his twin as they descended the stairs, maintaining a fair distance as he did so.
"Um... If you d-don't mind my asking. Would that be before or after the uh... Well, the whole ordeal with the virus?" Sun inquired, admittedly curious as to whether or not Ayala knew of them only in a negative light. He was effectively fishing for information relating to whether or not she had been involved with Fazbear prior to the incidents that would inevitably lead to their isolation.
"Before. I actually stopped visiting Fazbear a little while before that whole debacle." Ayala explained, effectively establishing that she had not been one of the people who had been negatively impacted by that initial incident with the child. This was a relief in its own right, though it only encouraged Sun to ask additional questions.
"Oh. Well. That's good~..." Sun replied, awkwardly adjusting his solar rays as he watched the woman start towards the door after reaching the bottom of the stairs. The door which had unfortunately somehow been left open all night without the animatronics realizing. Chances were that the door had never been properly closed.
"Why did you stop visiting? I-if you don't mind my asking!" He inquired, repeating a prior phrase in order to let the woman know that she need not reply to him if she did not wish too.
"Well, I... I didn't really have a reason to go back. I was only ever dropping someone off on my way to work. Once that responsibility was gone, I didn't really need to drop by." Ayala uttered in turn, sounding a bit like she was trying to walk around the subject without refusing to answer. As she spoke, she appeared to be observing her kitchen. Mostly the area around the door. Given that the door had been left open all night, she was probably just checking to see if anything else might have tried to come inside. When she found a bat tucked away behind her door, she rather casually grabbed it in order to make sure it was returned to the outdoors.
"You two were their favorite animatronic." She added, taking the bat and holding it out the door with her palm open. The animal dangled from her fingertips for a moment, before taking the hint and flying off. Meanwhile, her added statement proved enough to make Sun perk up. Even Moon found himself more curious about the conversation. It was rare for a child to claim them as their favorite. Usually it was one of the other animatronics.
"Really~?" Sun inquired, sounding rather excited. With how rare it was for the little ones to take such a liking to he and Moon, it was only natural for him to be happy to hear about it.
"Yeah..." Ayala stated, stepping away from her open door to go and wash her hands. She had just handled a wild animal and she was still a bit bloody from splitting her palm on the bedpost.
"They uh, they loved the daycare. Talked my ear off about their day every time I picked them up. For some reason, Moon was actually their favorite." She elaborated as she began to carefully clean her hands, failing at hiding small grunts of pain as she spoke. Now this, admittedly, caught both animatronics well off guard. Most kids didn't care for Moon, even before the whole incident with the virus. At best they found him creepy and at worse they had been absolutely terrified of him. So to hear that any child was particularly fond of him was rather unusual.
"Really~?!" Sun repeated his earlier inquiry, this time with more enthusiasm than before. Hearing that his twin had a fan was always something worth celebrating. The woman simply offered some sort of a sigh as she began to carefully dry her hands on the bottom of her shirt.
"Yep. They had a little nickname for him, too." Ayala stated, starting back towards the door once she had finished cleaning off her hands. "Called him the 'Grumpy Banana Man', or something like that." She revealed, coaxing a short but abrupt laugh out of Sun. Now that was a silly nickname, wasn't it? Moon, on the other hand, was not so amused by it. If anything, he seemed to be rather annoyed.
"I don't look like a banana." Moon retorted, somewhat bitterly. He was still standing at the bottom of the stairs, somewhat hunched over because he naturally had horrible posture.
"Maybe not so much now." Ayala uttered sarcastically as she walked out the door "But you definitely did before." She established. Sun continued to try not to laugh. He admittedly could see the comparison, to a degree. Even now. As different as their facial structures were now, Moon still had that tell-tale crescent moon shape that made up half of his face. Now that the comparison had been pointed out, Sun could definitely see it - and it amused him quite a bit. Much to Moon's annoyance.
"Its a crescent moon. Not a banana." Moon grumbled, following his brother to the door, only to pause. Apparently the door had not been the only thing left open throughout the night. As was noted by Ayala standing outside, staring at her car. The back door had been left open last night, and given the yellow foam visible on the ground around her car, some sort of wild animal had taken advantage of that. In fact - some sort of animal was still actively taking advantage of that fact. The animatronics could not tell exactly what was still in the car, but there was a moderately sized creature tucked away inside of it. Their sensors were able to pick up on its heartbeat. Whatever it was, the woman seemed rather hesitant to get any closer to her car.
"Er... Do you need some help?" Sun awkwardly offered, slowly approaching Ayala so that he could take a peek inside of the car. He was curious as to what exactly it was that had decided to make such a mess of the vehicle.