Chapter Text
“Rule one:” her mother’s voice rings out in her head, “Always be polite! Always smile and nod! Rule two: you must wear feminine clothing! Dresses and skirts. Pants are only allowed for softball. Rule three, never under any circumstances cry in front of others. That shows weakness and people will use that weakness against you.”
Rule four, her mother drilled into her, was the most important one. Not a single person could find out she was trans. She had to pass, and her mother did everything she could to make sure she would. She paid for the best vocal coaches, started her on hormones as early as possible, and had paid for surgeries to make her look more feminine. Her mother told her colleagues that her son had died, and to Ragatha it felt that way. Gone was her mother’s son and now she stood as her perfect daughter.
Ragatha hears Zooble call out after her, but she chooses to continue her escape. She flees down the stairs and into the common area of the circus, where Gangle is hunched over her sketchbook on one of the sofas. Ragatha sprints past her, rounding a corner before colliding with a blur of purple. The two are thrown hard to the ground and as she shakes away the birds circling around her head, she looks up to see Jax.
He grips his forehead with a wince. “What’s your problem, Rags?”
Ragatha jumps up, quickly dusting herself off. She would offer Jax a hand, but she knows he wouldn’t take it. “S-sorry Jax! I'm just in a hurry.” Her eyes dart around her and then over his shoulder, looking for a swift exit.
“A hurry where?” He scoffs. “Caine’s gonna be here any minute.”
Shit. She forgot about the adventure. She didn’t even realize Caine hadn’t hosted one yet today. She notices movement and Caine is floating a few feet above both of them.
“Good MORNING my ugliest of ducklings~!” He exclaims. “Today’s adventure is-!” He starts to say before pausing. His eyes glance around the room. “Where is everyone?”
Jax stands. “No idea, but Raggs here was just trying to run away.”
“GASP!” Caine says out loud. “Well, we can’t have that now. We need everyone here for this adventure!” He snaps his fingers, and the rest of the cast suddenly spawns around the floor. Kinger is still clutching a pillow from his fort and Pomni looks like she was just ripped out of bed, eyes blinking one at a time. Zooble descends from the upstairs cafe, half-empty latte still in hand. Caine looks around before nodding to himself in satisfaction. “Good, now that everyone’s here, today’s adventure is: The Crazy Casino of Chaos!” He emphasizes the announcement with a twirl and a set of jazz hands as the title rises like a glittering marquee behind him.
Jax’s eyes widen as an impish grin curls across his face. “Wait, we get to go gambling?”
“That’s right my eager little beaver!” Caine replies as he spins his cane. “You will all be competing to see how much money you can earn in one sitting! Cards! Coins! Glorious ignorance to your increasingly self-destructive addictions! Dice! Overpriced parking-!”
Pomni interrupts with a groan as she pulls her hands down her face. “Can we do something a little… Quieter this time? Casinos tend to be really loud and obnoxious.”
“Nope!” Is all Caine says as he shoves them all through the portal with a single giant hand.
The sound is the first thing Ragatha notices as the group spawns into the casino world. All around her loud music mingles with the whirling of slot machines and the sharp jangling of coins. She thought the circus was flashy and loud, but this is a whole other level of overwhelming. Flashing lights light up every corner of the red and gold casino hall, and the tight walkways are packed with default NPCs. Caine appears in front of the group, now sporting a dashing black three-piece suit instead of his usual red tailcoat. Ragatha looks around, realizing that she and the rest of the cast got a costume change too. Her usual patchwork blue dress is replaced with a pink bell-shaped dress with a black horse brooch pinned to its lapel. To her right, Pomni is wearing a black and white pin-striped suit, like something out of an old mafia movie. Her tie hangs undone around her neck, and the suit jacket is casually unbuttoned. Kinger has a similar suit, but his is properly put together. He is also sporting a homburg hat and a monocle over one eye. Gangle stumbles forward in front of the group now struggling with the fact that her ribbons are shoved into a set of black high heels. Tassels sway as they dangle from the black flapper dress she is wearing. Zooble looks almost the same as they did before, save for an open silk vest thrown lazily around their shoulders. Jax is wearing a massive oversized fur coat that matches the purple of his avatar. He starts to remove it from his shoulders before spotting multiple pockets lining the inside. A suspiciously delighted grin spreads across his face. “Oh, I can fit so many stolen things in this,” he chuckles.
“Now, now, my lavender lagomorph,” Caine gently scolds as he wags a finger. “Today's adventure is about winning money, not stealing it.”
Pomni glances around the hall before looking back at Caine. “Aren’t you supposed to, you know, bring money to a casino in order to earn more? Where’s our cash?”
“Ah-hah! Right you are, Pomni!’ Caine bellows, snapping his fingers. A sack of coins fall into each of their hands, except for Zooble. They look up to the ringmaster and sigh. “Uh, hello? Where’s my money? Aren’t I supposed to be doing the stupid adventure too?”
“Oh, Zooble. I have a special job for you today,” Caine’s face turns up in a simulated smile. “You’re going to be the dealer at the blackjack table.”
Zooble’s eyes widen. “What- why? Why can’t I just do what I want?”
“Everyone knows you need a cool individual as the blackjack dealer,” Caine says, wringing his cane. “Aaaaand I may have forgotten to make an NPC for the job, so…” He trails off as he blinks two large, coquettish eyes down at them.
Zooble groans before turning to make their way towards their table. As they pass by, Ragatha catches them giving her a sideways glance. She averts her eyes, pretending to be entranced by anything else. There’s no way she’s sitting down at that table, not after this morning.
The group disperses through the digital casino, each exploring at their own pace. Ragatha watches Pomni take up a seat at a slot machine, sliding one coin after the other. Gangle takes a seat across from Zooble at the blackjack table to keep them company. She looks around for Jax, but she can’t see him anywhere in the crowd of marquee lights and mannequins. She’s worried at first, but decides she has enough going through her brain to worry about whatever the rabbit could be doing. She spots Kinger sitting with a group of NPCs at the roulette table and decides to head over.
Kinger spots her approaching and waves before turning to the NPC next to him. “Is this seat taken?” Before the NPC can answer, Kinger grabs the edge of the chair pulling it out from under it. He then turns to Ragatha, patting the seat proudly. The NPC stands up to storm away and if it had a face Ragatha’s sure it would be glaring at her. She sits down next to Kinger and smiles. In front of her, there’s a large, red and black wheel with a white ball rolling across its numbered surface. Next to it, an NPC meticulously counts over multicolored game chips. The only defining trait they have to the rest of the crowd is a black bow tie around their neck.
Kinger leans in closer to her. “That’s the dealer,” he explains. “Give him a coin if you want to play.”
“Oh, uh, sure.” She mutters, pulling a golden coin out from her bag and sliding it over to the debonairly-dressed mannequin. The coins sport portraits of bubble on each side. The heads side shows the pest with a toothy grin and tails a filter bar over his mouth. The NPC nods, pocketing the coin before sliding a stack of pink chips back to her. Across the table, there are multiple numbers with red and black backing. The NPCs start moving tokens around, stacking them over different numbers. She has no idea how this game works. She attempts to look over to Kinger for assistance, but he’s completely hypnotized watching the ball spin around the wheel. She decides to just wing it by putting half her tokens out randomly across the table. The ball shudders to a halt and the dealer calls out 17 black. A few NPCs groan and others cheer. She looks out as the dealer grabs all of her tokens and pulls them away. Kinger looks over at her and smiles with his eyes. “Oh, better luck next time kiddo.” He leans forward to the dealer, pushing in his stack of tokens. “I’m all in on 57!”
Ragatha’s brow furrows as looks down at the table. Not only did Kinger not call a color but there isn’t even a 57 on the table at all. The dealer spins the wheel and Kinger looks back to her. “Have you ever been to a casino before?”
She laughs awkwardly in response. “No, my mother never would have let me go somewhere like this.”
Kinger blinks at her. “Why not? You’re an adult.”
Ragatha nervously wrings her hands and avoids eye contact with the chess piece. The tension builds in her shoulders as she watches the ball spin around the roulette wheel. “Stuff like this just doesn’t fit someone like me.”
She looks over and sees Kinger’s eyes still trained on her. There is concern and confusion on his face. One of his hands is reaching out for her. Across the table, the ball falls into place and the dealer calls out: “57 wins!”
Kinger’s head spins towards the dealer. “Oh! I seem to have won.”
He pulls stacks of tokens towards himself and turns to pat his ragdoll friend on the shoulder, but his hand simply falls through empty air. He searches over his shoulder, then the other, but Ragatha has already disappeared back into the crowd.
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Zooble deals out the next hand out to the table. In front of them they have a queen faced up and a card face-down. Across from them sits Gangle and two other blank NPCs. One has a top hat hanging precariously from its head and the other simply has lipstick where its mouth would be. Gangle is dealt two tens. The top hatted NPC has an eight and a six, and the one with lipstick has two fives.
From their experience playing with friends back during slow nights at the bar, Zooble knows Gangle has a good hand. They look over to her while waiting for the NPCs to make their moves. “I don’t know, she was acting so weird this morning.”
Gangle fidgets nervously with her cards. “Ragatha has always been a bit weird. I never really know how to talk to her.”
“Mmh, yeah, but this was a different kind of weird,” Zooble says, glancing across the hall to see the ragdoll sitting at the roulette table. “She kept going on and on about how there was a ‘right way’ to be a woman. It just… Annoyed me a bit, you know?”
The NPC with the lipstick motions towards themself and Zooble deals them a queen.
Gangle turns back to glance at Ragatha. “You heard her at the bar adventure though. It sounds like her mom put a lot of pressure on her before she joined the circus. Maybe that’s why she was acting like that?”
“Even so, I don’t push my S*&T onto other people,” Zooble scowls, dealing a card to Top Hat. “The whole thing felt so gross, like she was putting others into boxes and telling them how to act. It’s just-” Zooble contemplates finishing their thought, but decides instead to let out a sigh.
Top Hat blurts out a censored expletive, pushing his tokens towards Zooble before storming off. They peek at the card they had dealt. A king of spades sat upon an eight and six, a bust hand. Gangle waves her ribbon, signaling she’s staying.
“Maybe she’s the one putting herself in a box,” the Lipstick NPC pipes up. “Womanhood is tough to navigate and if you’ve only been taught one way it can be scary to try something new.”
Gangle and Zooble both stare at the mannequin, dumbfounded. Zooble looks it up and down, “What do you know about womanhood, you’re not even real?!”
“Everyone’s a critic,” it says, implying a rolling of its eyes. “Now are you going to reveal your hand, dealer?”
“O-oh! Yeah, sorry.” Zooble blinks. They flip their face down card over, revealing a seven. Both Gangle and the NPC’s hands add up to twenty, a win for them both. Zooble slides their chips over to them. As they reset the table for the next round, Pomni pulls up a chair to join them.
Zooble starts to deal her a set of cards but Pomni shakes her head, “I lost all my money at the slots.”
Gangle gives her a warm smile. “I’ll pay for your ante so you get a chance to play. This is more fun than I thought it’d be.”
Pomni smiles back at her before turning to Zooble. “What were you guys talking about? I overheard you saying something about… Womanhood?”
“We were talking about Ragatha,” Zooble replies, tapping their fingers against the table. “She made this weird remark about it this morning and then ran off before I could ask her about it.”
“Have you tried talking to her about it again?”
“She keeps avoiding me!” Zooble says as their eyes return to the roulette table, but upon a second glance, Ragatha is nowhere to be found.
“You should try looking for her after the adventure,” Pomni says. “I’m sure she’d be willing to explain herself after she’s cooled down a bit.”
Suddenly, a commotion from behind interrupts the group’s conversation, and they all turn to see Jax bursting through a side door with two giant bags of cash in hand. There are coins and dollar bills spilling out of the pockets of his now overstuffed fur coat. His eyes dart around the hall before locking onto the group at the table, and starts sprinting in their direction. Three mannequins in suits and sunglasses run out after him and start barreling to the group.
“Aw, f*#k.” Zooble curses.
“Here, catch!” Jax calls out before tossing one of the bags in Pomni’s direction.
“W-WAIT-!” Is all the jester can get out before she’s struck by 80 pounds of stolen contraband.
“We gotta split or we’re gonna be busted!” Before anyone can say anything more, he reaches across the table, snatching up Zoobles head before making a run for it.
Zooble, now just an armful of shapes, loudly protests. “PUT ME THE F$!K DOWN OR SO HELP ME-!”
“Whatever you say, Lego brick!” He says with a grin. He whirls around, winding his hand back before throwing Zooble’s head full force into the security guards in pursuit behind them. The force of the throw sends the mannequins flying and the sound of crashing bowling pins echoes throughout the casino hall.
The chase turns into a heist as the crew are once again forced to work together. The casino itself doesn’t have any exits, so instead of fleeing, they end up having to subdue the guards. Gangle ties one of them up using her ribbons in a surprising display of dexterity. Jax grabs one of the stools from a slot machine, using it to bean one of the security guards across the head. He looks up as a guard is about to tackle him to the ground, but right before it’s about to jump him, a sack of loot barrels into the mannequin pinning it to the ground. Jax looks up to see Pomni breathing heavily, shocked that the jester could throw something so heavy. Caine soon spawns in above them to congratulate the crew on the excessive violence and gambling. So much for a family-friendly adventure.
Jax earned the most amount of money thanks to his heist. Kinger came in second due to his winnings at the roulette table and Gangle came in third from her time at the blackjack table.
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Ragatha had slipped away, finding an empty bathroom in the casino to hide in before getting abruptly teleported back to the circus. Today was just too much for her. She doesn’t know what Zooble thinks about this morning. God, they knew didn’t they? Of course they know, they’re trans. Or non-binary? Or…
Ragatha suddenly realizes she doesn’t know. Her mother never taught her about any of that stuff before this. She never even met another trans person before coming to the circus. Zooble is just so... ZOOBLE. Of course they’d be able to clock her. She had heard of outing and is pretty sure that’s a bad thing. Zooble wouldn’t out her, right? She just needs to get back to her room and hope they forget the whole conversation and never bring it up again.
She turns the corner of the boarding hall, making a beeline for her room when suddenly she stops in her tracks. Zooble is standing in front of her door, arms crossed. When they spot her from across the hall, they relax ever so slightly, and they give her a single wave. Ragatha swears she feels a stuffed heart leapt beneath her chest.
FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, SHE CAN’T DO THIS.
“Oh! Hi Zooble!” She says, putting on her signature smile. “H-how can I help you?” She strains the nerves away, hoping they don’t notice her struggling to keep it together.
“I want to talk to you,” they bluntly reply, jerking a thumb towards their own room. “My room or yours?”
This is the worst case scenario. The instinct to rush past Zooble to her own room grows and her stomach twists in a knot. The smile plastered haphazardly across her face grows a few sizes too big. “Yeah! Of course! Whatever works for you.” She politely replies.
FUCK!
The two end up in Zooble’s room. The purple and blue wallpaper gives the room a much calmer atmosphere than Ragatha’s own, though in the moment she begs for something more familiar. Why, why didn’t she just offer her own room? Glancing around, she spots her own reflection in the mirrors hung up on the wall. Her face is painted with a gentle smile but she can see the panic behind her eyes. Zooble takes a seat at the end of their bed, leaving Ragatha to stand there awkwardly.
Ragatha hides a nervous swallow. “So, uh… What can I help you out with, Zooble?”
“What the f*%k happened this morning?” They coldly ask.
Her stomach lurches and her smile grows a bit wider. “W-what do you mean?”
“This morning? In the cafe?!” Zooble’s tone grows harsh. “The whole ‘right way to be a woman’ thing? What the f$*k was that all about?”
“I.. I’m sorry I-” The words cling to her throat and it tightens into a knot. “I didn’t mean to upset you or anything-”
“This isn’t about me, it's about you. Why did you run?”
Ragatha takes a step back, eyes darting around looking for anything else to focus on. They end up locking on the box in the corner. It’s ajar by an inch or two. One of zoobles arms is sticking out of it. Her eyes shoot back to Zooble, a proper question now forming in her mind. “What is it like getting to choose?”
They raise an eyebrow at the question, and an emotion crosses their face that she can’t read. “Choose my parts?” They ask, their tone still acidic.
“No, I mean… What’s it like being able to choose your identity?”
Zooble leans back into the bed, rubbing their face with a sigh before staring up at the ceiling. “Well, for starters, only I get to decide who I am. There’s no rulebook to being non-binary. You kinda are who you are. You don’t have to worry about masculinity or femininity but you can lean more one way or the other. It's up to the person to decide who they want to be.” Their eyes shift back to Ragatha. “It’s the same with being a man or a woman. Nobody has the right to tell you how to be who you are. I’ve met plenty of masculine women and feminine men. It’s your choice to be who you want to be, nobody else’s.”
Ragatha squeezes her shoulders as she looks from the floor to Zooble. There’s so much emotion welling up behind her eyes and her mothers voice echoes in her head: Do not cry. Do not show emotion. She has to do it right. Zooble’s eyes lock onto hers and there isn’t an ounce of judgement behind them.
Her voice comes out quiet and shaky. “I.. Get to choose who I want to be?”
Zooble’s eyes widen and there’s a level of recognition in them that makes her sick. Rule number four burns in her memory. Zooble can’t know, nobody can know.
Zooble stands up from the bed and holds a hand out to her. “Ragatha… It sounds like you’ve been forced into… Toxic femininity. You don’t have to be that anymore. You can be whatever you want. You can be like me… Or you could even be a man if that’s what you really want.”
This gets a laugh out of Ragatha. A swift and completely honest laugh cutting through the facade she wore into this room. “Absolutely not. I never want to be a man again-”
The words leave her mouth before she even realizes she said them. Her eyes dart up to Zooble’s, and two of them stare at each other wide-eyed. A heavy silence hangs in the air between them for a minute before Zooble blinks at her. “I’m sorry, you’re…”
Rule four had been broken. Word had gotten out.
It’s over.
She’s fucked.