AU Headcanons (Because Why Not?)

Freedom AU/FNAF (5)

  Aside from her skill of ballet, Ballora is also gifted in another area. Music; the piano, to be more specific. Back during their company days, it could be hard for everyone to find ways to pass the time while just hanging around in the rental facility. Sometimes there'd be parties held in the building, but otherwise, it was pretty quiet. Not much for entertainment, and not many employees came by on shifts. There'd only ever be about two at a time.

For a while, the best Ballora could do, was simply practice her dancing. Only, the access to anything that played music was always taken away after parties were finished. Nobody could find where those were kept, not even Ennard—who knew that building inside and out. So, the only form of music she had, was her music box. It only played one melody, an excerpt from Claire de Lune. Ballora always found the melody to be beautiful, and never did tire of it.

She would spend her time dancing to the small music box, always coming up with various choreography in her mind to keep herself busy. She'd even try to come up with dance routines that she could do with her sister, Ella—Circus Baby.

One day, near the end of the small party rental building's end, employees began storing various things in the rooms. Quite a few things were stored in the small room that the Marionette had stayed in, and once he was moved back to the main location chain, they piled more boxes and things inside.

Ballora woke up one night to the sound of a piano's keys being played in a, erm, less than skillful way. She followed the sound all the way into the Funtimes' room, where a piano could be found. Almost everyone was gathered around it, touching the keys to try and make some kind of melody. When asking where it came from, Ballora was giving one answer. Nobody knew, the employees just moved it into that room.

Later on, when the room was empty, Ballora went back to the piano. Sitting down, she took a bit to familiarize herself with all the notes. Compared to her music box, she seemed to notice that some of the keys were out of tune. Some, not by that much, others were more obvious. However, she didn't mind. After figuring out what all the notes were, she proceeded to play a song.

Starting simple, she played Claire de Lune. However, she didn't know how the entire song went, so, she sort of made up the rest as she went. Some of the others heard her playing, and listened in. After noticing how easily, and beautifully, she'd played her music box melody, Ballora was then asked if she could try other songs. She was able to do so, by pure memory. Each song would start off a bit slow and choppy, before then becoming more smooth as she played the songs requested. At one point, there was a certain song that Gus wanted to hear, but he had forgotten the name of it. So, he just hummed it as best he could, and Ballora picked it up from there.

A lot of the time, Ballora would be asked to play the piano. It was a great pass time, really. She seemed to enjoy it very much, and grew to love playing it just as much as she loved doing ballet.

One day, her and the others were all moved from the building when the rental location closed. Now, with being stuck in a company warehouse, Ballora had no piano to play. She'd instead either go back to listening to her music box, or she would hum the melodies she'd played on the instruments. The others seemed to notice how upset it made her, losing something she enjoyed to do.

Settling into her first real home with Puppet, Ballora had nearly forgotten about those days past of just playing music to her heart's content. She was just happy to be free, finally able to live a real life—with the love of her life, no less. So, it came to a huge surprise to her when she was gifted something not long after moving in.

Arriving home from a meeting with Newer Home's School Board, Ballora was met with not only visitors in her house, but also something large hidden under an equally large blanket, in their living room. Everyone pulled the blanket all at once to reveal a short, wooden, piano. Nobody missed the look of surprise and excitement glistening in her pink eyes that day, as it changed to a certain spark of joy and passion as she sat down to play the instrument—surprising even herself that she still had the skill.

To this day, Ballora still plays the piano rather skillfully. She's currently trying to learn to read sheet music, but really, she can play most arrangements she hears, almost to a T. It's been surprisingly helpful with her job of teaching children in Newer Home ballet. If ever they need a certain piece of music to dance to, she can simply play the in-studio piano for her students—sometimes shaking up the style to make things fun when need be.

Her love of music is near equal to her love of ballet. She would probably feel a part of herself break if either were taken from her, but thankfully, the likeliness of this seems to be very low.

Bonus:

When playing her piano at home, most of the time, her four daughters will sit on top of the piano and listen. Ballora's tried putting trinkets, or frames on top of it, but the Minireenas always move them to the floor next to the piano, before all climbing on top. At first, Ballora's instinct was to tell them to get down, but she quickly noticed how still they were sitting. There's no risk of their small forms hurting the instrument, and after all, they just want to listen to their mama's playing.

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A.N. I've been procrastinating this headcanon since November, and today I suddenly remembered that I need to write this—especially before we get too far into "Once a Dancer"... heheh :3