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“If we ever get out-”
“Pomni, I just… you know that’s not happening, right?”
“... I do, but… can you entertain a fantasy?”
“... Hee. I can’t say no to those eyes. Alright, just this once.”
“Then if we get out, we’re going to find each other again. And… and let’s get married.”
“This is a strange proposal, you know. Usually I’d get a ring!”
“Iiiiii can buy you a ring pop at the carnival?”
“Alright, alright. Ring pop it is. Let’s get married when we’re out.”
Against all odds- against all forces surrounding them both in and out of the circus- everyone made it out. It wasn’t wrong to hope for those three years she’d spent inside- Pomni was always right.
But they weren’t all together.
And how could they be? They were players from all around the world who just happened to find a rare headset and attached game. They weren’t just going to escape from the same computer. On top of that, even if they all remembered their real names and life before… Nobody had any way of sharing that information while in the circus proper. Everyone was a mystery to everyone else in both name and appearance.
Which meant the love of Pomni’s life was still missing. The woman who had been there from day one, the one who’d held her when she wept for all she couldn’t remember, the one who kissed her on the ferris wheel under pixelated fireworks. Where was Ragatha?
She’d managed to track down Gangle within a year via a game forum, who in turn had figured out where Kinger lived within another turn of the seasons. The trio had met up multiple times, and while Pomni was somewhat worried about the two of them, it turns out that freedom plus extensive therapy had restored a great deal of their psyches. Pomni never thought she’d see the day where she could sit in a cafe with Kinger and Gangle and just… talk about life. No adventures, no bouts of yelling or sobs. Just a happy conversation between three people savouring the world they’d been denied for so long. Each sip of coffee was a toast to their victory.
Still, that meant three others were missing from their reunion. Gangle and Kinger were doing their best to track them all down, but this was a world with a little more than three available locations. They could be absolutely anywhere in the world.
And so, packing her bags, that’s where Pomni went. Anywhere and everywhere.
Traveling was both a joy she never thought she’d ever get to experience, and was also so much easier said than done. All that time in isolation makes crowded planes difficult; years of disuse of her real legs makes walking long distances a brutal battle. But she tries, because she made it out of a place that destroyed so many of those it took, she looked oblivion in the eye and bared her teeth- Pomni isn’t afraid.
(Maybe she is a little, of children blowing bubbles and traveling sideshows and dentist offices but- she faces them. Not always without tears, but she does.)
The odds are against her. As supportive as they are in her quest to find her lost love, Pomni knows Gangle and Kinger think she’s the loopy one. Maybe they’re right, but she can’t stop. If she’d stopped and admitted defeat in the circus, they’d never have gotten out to taste the fresh air and feel the real sun, yes? Pomni is stubborn; always has been. So she won’t call uncle yet. Not even as the years tick by.
It’s almost the ten year anniversary of finding their freedom, and Pomni is in a new state. She’s been to the tourist attractions, she’s picked out her souvenirs to mail to Gangle and Kinger, and now she’s settled on a bench in a small park in a residential area to rest her legs a bit. It’s autumn, the leaves turning and falling around the playground where children run and shriek, and Pomni will never get tired of the beauty of the seasons. Scalding summers, freezing winters- anything, as long as they were real. She embraces it all.
So caught up is she in staring at the trees, lost in her own thoughts, that she almost doesn’t hear it. Or maybe that’s not true and there’s no chance in the universe that she could ever have missed that voice calling that name.
“Now run and play with your friends, Pomni!”
Perhaps she’s imagined it, some small but present piece of pessimism in her whimpers. Perhaps that’s simply become the trendy name for young girls and she simply missed out on it. But of course not, because Pomni would always recognize the love in that voice as the name is said.
A woman waves to her small daughter as the girl rushes to join a gaggle of children on the monkey bars. She smiles, stepping back and seemingly taking in some of the falling leaves herself. In some ways she is different. She has both of her eyes, for one, and her face now shows gentle signs of age with laugh lines and a crease in her forehead. But her bouncing red curls, now made of real hair, are almost identical, and the periwinkle overcoat she wears brings memories of a patchwork dress.
Pomni stands as if in a trance, pulled in this woman’s direction by some force so much greater than herself. It almost doesn’t feel real, like at any moment she’ll wake up in her hotel room to the sound of her clock and to an empty queen bed. But no, the wind is crisp on her skin, the sun is warm, and this is real.
“Ragatha?” She says, the words leaving her lips cautiously, as if she could somehow not know who this was. As if they somehow could not have found each other.
The woman’s head turns, eyes wide for a moment at a name so very distant in her past. Something in her mind clicks. Her eyes are wider, wider still. “... Pomni?”
“Hi again.” Pomni smiles, and oh, she knows it’s wavering like it used to do in the circus. So frequently she was on the verge of tears. Perhaps old habits die hard.
“Pomni.” Ragatha says once more in amazement, as if she can’t get enough of the word on her tongue. “Pomni, it’s- it’s you?”
“Me.” It’s all she thinks she can get out at the moment, so caught up in the sunshine staring down at her. Oh, god, she’s still shorter than Ragatha in the real world. Not by nearly as much, but she’s still a head above her. She’s perfect. Perfect as always.
Ragatha is still almost breathless, reaching out to stroke Pomni’s arm as if to make sure it’s not a hallucination. When her skin touches the fabric of her coat, she pulls back in utter astonishment, pausing for a moment to breathe. “Can we… let’s sit down.”
They walk to the bench Pomni was just at, and she suddenly understands why Orpheus turned around in that tunnel. Every second without Ragatha’s face in her sight is like torture, worse than anything the circus could have provided. The two sit, and it’s another quiet moment as they examine each other’s faces, replace dolls and jesters with human women. It’s Ragatha who breaks the silence first. “I thought I’d lost you. I really thought I’d never see you again.”
A seed of doubt is planted, winding through Eden and into Pomni’s lungs. A daughter. Ragatha has a daughter, which- which could very well mean… “Is she- that child there…”
“She’s my little girl. She just turned six.” Ragatha is still looking at her like she’s examining a marble statue at the museum, taking in each fine curve, each mark and curve of the face. “Her name is Ann, actually, but- her middle name is Pomni. It’s what I always call her.”
A daughter with her name. If Pomni wasn’t still floating in the air, she thinks she might burst into tears at the mere concept that someone loved that scared, neurotic circus thing enough to name their child after her. But she’s still held back by the most painful thought of all: that Ragatha has moved on. “... Her father?”
“She’s adopted, Pomni.” A little smile warbles its way onto Ragatha’s face, not stop motioned and quick, but with all the little trembles and quivers of human skin. “I never married. I was waiting for you.”
Ragatha had waited, too. Nearly a decade, and she’d waited like they’d said. Eurydices following behind her as they left hell, though this story will not end like theirs. It’s been impossible for Pomni to find any real hold in the idea of god after what she’d gone through, but this moment- this crisp fall day, this feels like what she thinks religion is supposed to make you feel like.
She’s got something in her purse. Pomni buys a new one of these everywhere she goes, and usually has to eat them herself in defeat. Not this time. Her hands tremble as she removes the promised item, takes off the crinkling wrapper, holds it out.
Travel as you look for your lost love is expensive, and so is jewelry. But ring pops are always there.
“Ragatha,” she says, and though she wants so badly to know her real name, in one moment, she is relieving the past, with false names and real people, “We promised something in the circus. You remember, right?”
Ragatha’s eyes shine, blue like that button was, and her hand extends. Two pairs of shaking hands meet, skin on skin, and Pomni slides the candy onto her finger. It will be sugary sweet, fake like almost everything in the circus. Almost. They are- and were- so very, truly real.
“I do.” It’s answering two questions at once.
The sun is real. The air is real. The leaves are real. Their lips meeting are real. No digital hum separates them now, kissing each other on this park bench, and they are alive.
How long does it last? Hard to say. Enough that people stare. Let them. They’ve both crawled out of hell, they’ve both broken a curse, they’ve both earned their goddamn happy ending. Eventually they break apart, foreheads still touching, voices like whispers. Ragatha’s lip gloss stains Pomni’s lips; she never wants to wash it off as she hears the other woman’s voice. “I found Jax and Zooble. We’re still looking for the other two.”
“Gangle and Kinger and I are all in touch. It was you three we were looking for.”
Ragatha giggles, the melody so perfect Pomni almost regrets interrupting it with another kiss. Almost.
The leaves fall, the wind blows, and things are falling into place. Ragatha whispers again. “Would you like to come meet my daughter? I’ve told her all about you.”
Pomni nods, their hands meeting as they rise, cheap candy on Ragatha’s finger. They’ll replace it one day, perhaps, with something real. For now, though, it is a sign of a promise kept. Of a life in the future.
They stand together. They will do this until the end of time.