Work Text:
Pomni slowly rose out of bed as her alarm goes off, and she turns it off. A soft sigh escapes her before she sits up and gets out before creeping to her door, opening it slowly before peeking out into the hallway. She spotted Kinger, standing outside one of the doors in the hall, the door in question once belonging to a chess piece that looked similar to him. He sat something down in front of the door before walking away. She noticed this pattern recently; Kinger would wake up earlier before anybody, stop by that door, leave what could be a present, then leave to the main floor to build his pillow fort. She wasn’t sure if this was a recent thing, or if he’s always done this, but it would explain why he’s up way before anyone else, even Caine surprisingly. Once he was gone, she stepped out of her room and rushed over to the door he stopped at, seeing that the gift was a bouquet of flowers. Picking it up, she saw that they were a bouquet of anemones, small purple colored flowers. Looking around, the jester set the bouquet down and followed the sentient chess piece, spotting him crawling into his pillow fort. She was curious as to why he was doing this, and she wanted to ask him, but knew having a normal conversation with him was hard. Either he’d stare off into the void or scream, just to forget what had been asked of him. So with that, she mostly left it alone for the rest of the day, until later on in the night when she’d spot him doing it again at night before returning to his room for the night.
She wasn’t sure why he was doing this, and every time, it just built her curiosity more and more, till one night, she just couldn’t stand it anymore, even if it wasn’t her business, her curiosity was not going to leave her alone. And so, she set her alarm to go off about ten minutes earlier than normal and quickly got into bed to sleep.
It had been a few odd weeks, maybe even a month before she found herself trapped in the Digital Circus, and even though she wanted to leave, she slowly came to terms with the fact that, maybe there wasn’t a reliable exit back to the real world. And even though it hurt, it certainly didn’t help her in the sanity department, that’s for sure, she did what she could do at least make living in a place like this bearable, which was a challenge with things like Cainems adventures or Jax’s cruel “jokes”, but, she was at least able to keep herself from going insane and abstracting.
The next morning, her eyes shot open at the sound of her alarm and she slams it down to make sure no one would hear before jumping out of bed and gently pushed the door open. Sure enough, there was Kinger, approaching the door now. She took a few deep breaths before stepping out into the hall and approaching him, not wanting to startle him. As she got closer, she saw the face on the door, a brown queen chess piece wearing a royal red robe. Twiddling her fingers, she cleared her throat to get the king piece’s attention. What happened next, surprised her as he looked in her general direction, making eye contact rather quickly.
“Oh, Pomni! Good morning, I didn’t expect to see you up so early!” He greeted her. He seemed…calm. Unusually calm. And it threw her off, as it was more disorienting than when Caine was teleporting her around the circus.
“G-Good morning Kinger.” She replied, coyly waving a hand. “I’m sorry, I hope I’m not bothering you, but…I’ve noticed you’ve been leaving these flowers at this door for the last few days…”
“Oh these? Anemones, my dear. They were my queens favorite flowers when she was around.” She could hear it in his voice; he sounded happy, but a little sad as well as he sat them down at the door.
“Is…is it okay if I ask why?”
Kinger went silent, drumming his fingers together before looking at her, giving her a small nod.
“Of course. But this stays between us for now, okay?” He asked, seeing her nod in response. He took a deep breath and slowly grabbed his eye before pulling back. What he revealed nearly got Pomni to scream, if she hadn’t slapped her hands over her mouth. Glitching pixels were behind his eye, all congregating into a thick, paint like substance before he put his eye back, making sure it was on tight.
“Y-you’re abstracting?!” The jester questioned quietly, a sense of panic washing over her.
“Close…I’ve been abstracting. I’ve been abstracting for a long, long time, Pomni.” He clarifies before turning back to the door, staring at the face of the queen on it. “And it’s been happening, ever since the day I lost her.”
Pomni eyed the picture of the queen before looking up at him, seeing him drum his fingers a bit.
“It was years ago…I was the first to arrive here in the circus. It was surprisingly a lot smaller than what it is now, just a simple circus tent with Caine running the show with Bubble as his sidekick. Shortly after I arrived, my Queener. Neither of us remembered what life was like before the circus, and we wanted out, but, we didn’t have any luck finding one…though, me and Queener didn’t mind after a while. We had each other, and for our new friends who came around after us, we worked together to keep them calm so they wouldn’t have to abstract. We’d go on Caine’s adventures, work together, surprisingly, it was a lot of fun! Then one day, one of the adventures got a little…chaotic. Unexpectedly so. There was a gloink infestation, similar to the one we dealt with a while ago, except Caine had lost control of how many were allowed to be within the Tent. They ended up taking Queener back to their queen, and by the time we were able to stop it and find her, Queener had abstracted, more than likely due to whatever the gloink queen did to her…Caine didn’t have any other choice, and had to push her into the basement, where all the abstracts go. Over time, everyone else began to fall to abstraction, as for me…I’ve lost myself, and one morning, I come to find that I had been abstracting from the inside out, and I was changing. I didn’t know what else to do, so, I left Queener’s favorite flowers at her door, figuring if I was going to abstract, I might as well give the one I loved one last gift. The next morning though? I was fine…but I found that the abstraction was still there behind my eye. So, I did it again the next day. Then the next, and then the next. I even brought it up to Caine, hoping he could give me some suggestions on what to do.”
“What did he say?” Pomni asks, tilting her head to the side slightly.
“He said to just keep doing it, and hopefully, he could figure out some way to reverse it. I’ve lost track, but I know I’ve been doing it for a long, long time.” He said with a nod, looking at the picture of Queener.
“That…explains a lot.”
“…Explains what?” He blinked before looking at Pomni. “Oh, sorry, Pomni…when I think about her, I tend to get a little lost in thought.”
“So that’s why you scream whenever someone tries to talk to you? You’re thinking about her?” The jester questions, looking up at him.
“That’s exactly it.” He nods, tapping his fingers together again. “I just hope she’s okay down there, and if she is…does she think about me? If so…what does she think of me, lasting so long without abstracting?” Pomni stood quietly before slowly reaching for one of his hands, wrapping her fingers around his, which made him jump a bit before looking down at her.
“…I think she’d be proud of you.” She said, giving him her best comforting smile. While he didn’t have a mouth, she could tell he was smiling back after he let out a sigh.
“Thank you Pomni…come with me, we can build a pillow fort together!” He said before Pomni let’s go of his hand. With a smile, the jester followed the king down the hall. At least now, she had an idea of what to do to ward off abstraction, just had to find something to keep her mind busy, like a hobby or a daily ritual. Hopefully, things will be okay from here on out, that was all she and all of the others who were trapped here with her could really ask for. At least she could relax before Caine’s crazy daily adventure, whatever it may be.