You were a doll after all, it was the reason for your existence to bring comfort to children. And Zoey was definitely smaller than you, though obviously not as short as Mona.
This time, you dreamed of your transformed family from your previous dream, only this time you were all happilyy having tea with Mona, Zoey, Jingles, and Albert, his jokes as hilariously stupid as ever. Of course you were having tea floating in the clouds, and the tea was all different colors, and the pillows were all big lizards and the table had its own opinions on you not sticking out your pinky while commanding the starship, but that was par the course with dreams.
"GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! LET'S HAVE A MAGICAL DAY!" Shouted the cheerful voice over the load speaker.
You disengaged from Zoey before she fully woke up, not wanting to disturb her. As Zoey woke up, she shook her head.
"So what's the next step for Operation: Family together?" You asked slyly.
"Oh!" Zoey looked almost a bit surprised by the question. "Now that we have maps of the park, we should begin to mark off spots not listed on the official maps! Entrances to the hidden spots, places where the admin mascots work, where all the stuff for the shops comes from, if there's any spots where we can closer to the edge of the park, that sort of thing."
You nodded, that made sense, Zoey might have been a silly clown, but she was so clever.
You climbed out of the grate... to find a zebra mascot waiting for you. Unlike the majority of mascots you'd seen so far, she was wearing a dress. She had mammies that were big and around, and all-in-all looked more COMICAL than alluring, like a joke on the stereotypical expectations of female beauty. She also had with her cleaning supplies.
She bowed showing off her cartoonish cleavage. "Hello, I'm Zaria the Zebra Maid! Nice to meet you! I'm the maid who helps keep your rooms clean! Your beds are always unslept in. So you obviously haven't been using them. But there are no reports about you being woozy. So you two have been camping out this whole time. Can I PLLLLEEEEEAAAASE clean your camp-out site for you?" She asked pleading.
Zoey looked unsure. "I dunno... how do we know you ain't gonna tattletale on us?"
Zaria gasped dramatically. "Oh no! I promise I won't! Maid's honor! I don't tattletale about ANYTHING I find in Mascots rooms! It goes against the maid's code!"
"You have a code?" You asked.
"Oh course!" Zaria said proudly. Master Antione the Skunk taught to us! ..." She looked up at the ceiling with stars in her eyes. "He's the most handsome and noble skunk mascot on the face of the earth."
"He's the admin mascot who manages of the hotel," Zoey said.
"Master?" You asked.
"He taught us zebra maids everything we know, we are in his employment, we look up to him, it's only proper manners for us maids to call him Master," Zaria said matter of fact putting a hoof on one hip, taking a slightly defensive tone as if she'd had this chat many times before.
Zoey sighed. "Okay, you can clean our hide-out, but don't mess with anything!"
"Of course, I am a maid after all!" Zaria said. (That evening you'd be stunned to see everything in your hide out spect and span and not a single thing out of place or missing. And in fact an extra pillow and blanket, and a couple of mints.)
Today's breakfast was a big donut this time, and like before, it was the most delicious thing you'd ever had, gave you the energy to continue the day!
With time to yourselves, you entered the lounge for the mascots, some play air hockey.
"Hey, Lucy," Matilda called. "I did a recording of yesterday's show of Magical Animal Adventures since you missed it."
"OH! Thank you Matilda!" You smile. "I was really curious where things would go yesterday!"
Matilda provided a portable TV and headphones, just your size.
You were completely engrossed in the show, all the pretty colors, the heart-felt heroes, the epic villains, the exciting adventures, the deep mysteries of their magical world that was eons old and had gone through at least one alien invasion thousands of years ago. Matilda kept slipping you strawberry shakes.
When the credits rolled, you were surprised to find Albert sitting next to you.
"Oh! Hey Albert!"
"Hey Lucy! I heard you saw Dr. Z, everything go okay?"
"Oh yes!" You nodded. "And I got to meet Mona, she's the witch who brought me to life!"
"Congrats! With how big Whimsy World it is, it can be easy to miss some Mascots. Some old goat tried throwing rotten fruit at me during my routine last night, but I dodged them all and just turned it into part of the show! The audience couldn't stop laughing!"
You laughed too. "THAT SOUNDS GREAT!"
"Thanks! Hey, you're assigned to park walking right now right? Why don't you visit!"
"Oh, sorry, not today, well, maybe, I'm gonna visit Mona at the Magic Playroom today."
"Have a good time!"
"I know I will!" You cheered. After that it was another cleaning, and this time, you ran your hardest and made it in time for the opening welcome parade... It felt so... RIGHT to march with your fellow mascots, being in the spot light, getting attention and love from the guests... The confetti got in everything, but that just part of the fun.
You did some more photoshoots with the kids... and some after that... and some after that... It was such a rush to see so many of them happy.
"STOP THIEF!" A woman shouted as a man ran with her purse in hand doing a flying leap over the hand stamper stand... only to get clothesline by Chelly, and falling right on his back as she swiftly and efficiently put his hands behind his back, and called in the incident on her radio.
"I thought you were just for show!" The thief snapped.
"You thought wrong," Chelly said matter of fact, holding the thief until the police arrived to take the thief from the park. Chelly dusting off her hands and getting back to keep an eye out for further trouble and returning the woman's purse.
You decided to make your way to the Magic Playroom... it was funny... thinking about it... well, NOT thinking about it.
"Hey Lucy," called Jingles laying on an overhead cloth relief from the sun.
"Hello Jingles," you said, feeling slightly uncomfortable remembering how your last chat had gone with her.
"Have somewhere to be?" She asked.
"I'm gonna see Mona at the Magic Playroom! And maybe see Albert's show in the jungle zone... Uh, do you know what's happened if you're punished for breaking curfew?" You asked.
Jingles hopped down, and doing her best spring-heeled-jack impersonation, carried her up to yet another roof top, getting the attention of the guests and mascots, but knew it was likely another of Jingles' pranks.
"They remove your brain since you're obvious defective and replace it with a new one!" She said in a demonic voice.
You gasped. "Really?!"
"No! Not really! You write 100 times what it was you did wrong, why it was wrong, and that you'll never do it again. And you get no TV for a week."
"Oh... "
"I know that look in your eyes. You're still being Zoey's sidekick. So... did you uncover the secret underground government base creating Mascot super soldiers?" Jingles asked playfully.
"...No."
"Or maybe the ancient sunken Egyptian pyramid underneath the park containing a dolls obsessed Pharaoh forgotten by history?"
"Not that either."
"Did you find out the deep dark terrible secret that mascots who fall out of favor are turned into robot slaves?!"
"... Uh, no."
"Okay. I think the robots are either headless, mindless pieces of equipment, or they get unlimited internet access."
"Zoey thinks that our memories of how we're created get mixed up with our back stories... Since she remembers being made a completely different way from me."
"Unless of course... different mascots get created in different ways. ... I certainly wasn't made using a clown machine or a witch. Or at least, I don't remember it that way. History books are just the backstory to the present everyone agrees as continuity. Who's to say ANY of it happened?
"I remember being childhood friends with Darrel The Fire Dog. I could tell you the names of my classmate sand what species they were. I remember the first prank I pulled. I could tell you which grades I flunked.
"I could tell you the color of the ribbons in the hair of the kangaroo I had as a nanny and her favorite lullaby... Now... obviously... none of that could have happened right? I mean, we're mascots in a theme park, there's NO WAY any of that could have happened... But I still hug Nanny Kat every time I see her. And she tells me how tall I've gotten. Mascot are supposed to be immortal, eternal, but existing in a void makes it impossible for audiences to connect with us... so we NEED to have a back story, or we're just ... nothing.
"You're lucky so far, you've been given the job of being a free roaming mascot, not bound to a particular section of the park because you can mostly fit in almost anywhere. That lets you go about as you please as long as you're keeping the guests happy. Me? I gotta keep this place alive. No performance exactly the same as the last, like life. And keeps the guests coming back for me! I've got quiet the soap opera going between me and and Central Towners. The guests love it!"
"Just look out for Gumballs, his juggling was a very popular act before Zoey was created. Now he's been regulated to a side act. I wonder if they'll give him an updated look!"
"Update?"
Jingles stretched some. "We're MASCOTS! Of COURSE we're going to get upgraded to keep up with the times! Good news is that I've never once heard of one of us being disposed of if we completely fall out of popularity. Unless we have our memories erased of them of course!" Jingles mimed twirling a mustache and gave a cartoonish evil laugh.
"But seriously, we're just regulated to mundane duties like manning the restaurants, operating the rides, etc. From what I can tell, even if we're updated, the inner most essence of who we are remains."
"I'll admit," Jingles said crossing her legs and assuming a thinking pose. "I don't know if the park just acquires new land and expands, or if it has some super-secret extra-reality-alien 'bigger on the inside' thing going. Outsiders are never called in, Mascots do any construction that needs doing. Legal Ludwig must have a challenging day keep the labor unions' attack dogs at bay.
"But this park's only been open for a while! There should have been time for all that!"
"... Are you sure?"
"... How much of what you say is you telling tall tales?"
Jingles shrugged. "Honestly? Even I'm not sure. But think about this way... once you've taken a nap... how can you ever be sure how long you've been napping? You could just be sleeping until you come back in style. Every day is a new experience here."
"But we talked yesterday!"
"I know that. You know that." She wiggled her claws while making 'WooooOOOOooo' faces. "But if our memories can all be mixed-and-matched like Zoey's been saying to whatever we need them to be. How'd we know? Maybe we haven't met before today! Maybe this is a fake memories we're experiencing right now!"
"Jingles... what would you do if you thought I'd was going to try to..." You struggled to finds words that didn't feel just WRONG. "Make Whimsy World... not... be around?"
Jingles laughed and laugh. Then said calmly. "I'd tickle you until you could take no more, then keep tickling you more, and then wrap you in a present and put you in a closet till Christmas. Whimsy World is my home. And I won't see it destroyed because of one self-important clown and a naive dolly she befuddled when she was still getting her foot."
You shuddered a bit. Then jovially put an arm on your shoulder. "But hey, you aren't really interested in that are you? Zoey's done this routine again and again. And as soon as her newest friend decides to let go of memories that aren't even theirs, she abandons them like discarded tools. I could tell you stries. Sir Jay The Bluebird from the fantasy section, Harry The Hyena from the jungle section, Jelly The Rabbit... They all wanted to stay Zoey's friend, didn't even pressure her to sleep in her own bed... but she gave them all the cold shoulder. She thinks anyone who's chosen to let go of their copied memories are just zombies. And she'll discard YOU the moment you do. Just remember that Lucy."
Jingles deposited Lucy back on the street below and hopped back away. Lucy felt her brain spinning, she was just a simple happy doll, all this stuff was way over her head! So she chose to focus on seeing Mona instead!
What she found a huge happy building colored blue with happy animals on the outside... Once inside she found countless kids watching a stage. On one side of the stage was Mona, laughing wickedly as she summoned a big purple monsters with claws and yellow eyes.
On the other side was brown haired girl mascot with green eyes in a white dress with gold tassels holding a pretty want with a star on the end.
The monster stage swung at the other girl, who dramatically dodged the monster's claws.
The monster let out a Pepper's Ghost laser beam. Heartfelt Heather blocked it with her wand.
"Everyone! Believe in me! Believe!"
The children cheered for her.
Then Heartfelt Heather shouted, "Love Magic Blast!"
The monster was obscured in a blast of colorful confetti, and then was gone.
"Dang it Heartfelt Heather! You might have beaten me today! But you don't next time!" And Mona exited stage right.
And the kids cheered as Heartfelt heather bowed. "Thank you everyone! Thank to your hopes and wishes love and goodness triumph another day!" Little fuzzy mascots on stage cheered as well.
-
You went back stage, to find Mona, Heather, and the monster (whose collar tag read as 'Tim!'), all sharing soft drinks. the fuzzy little mascots playing a table top roleplaying game.
"Do you think I laid it on too thick in the first act?" Mona asked.
"No, you know they love getting scared a little!" Heather assured her.
Then Mona spotted you. "Lucy! Great to see you could make it! Lucy, this is Heartfelt Heather and Tim The Terrible. Heather, Tim, this is Lucy The Living Doll! I created her a while back!"
"You didn't tell me you play the villain," you said without thinking.
"I am for this sketch," Mona said. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to be revealed to be Heather's best friend and not knowing she's Heartfelt Heather and she saves me from myself with the power of friendship."
"She's being modest, she great at scaring the kids for the opening act!" Heather said.
You whisper to Mona. "Mona... can you tell me what ... my donor looked like?"
"Oh the soul transfusion? Sure!" And Mona did so... giving you an exact description of what you'd looked like and what you'd been wearing... as far as you could remember at least. You could practically hear Zoey already saying that Mona could have been given that memory herself, or had been present for the process anyway. Still, it did confirm that Mona did know what the Mascots were made.