Chapter Text
"The #&$%, Jax? Really?"
Yet another lovely day in The Amazing Digital Circus, Pomni thought.
Zooble glared at the lanky rabbit as he laughed and leaned back in his chair. The group all sat at a long fancy table adorned with a tacky multicolored tablecloth. All except one of them, a red-headed ragdoll that, most of the time, had a pleasant smile on her stitched face.
That typical smile wasn't present at the moment, instead being replaced by a look of horror as she stood stiff, having jolted up out of her seat. Ragatha was looking wide-eyed at the huge blender sitting on the table in front of her, one of six for each of the circus denizens.
The strange mushed-up fruits inside the blender had an extra many-legged ingredient, courtesy of the circus's resident lackadaisical leporid. The poor ragdoll had only noticed in time from Pomni's timely intervention, much to Jax's annoyance. He seemed to still get quite the kick out of it.
"It- you- ugh!" Ragatha stuttered out as she looked over at Jax. He smiled back his smug toothy smile and shrugged.
"What's wrong, doll? I just wanted to spice your smoothie up a bit. I feel so underappreciated here!" he said.
"That ain't cool, man," Zooble muttered.
"Like you care, Zoobie."
"You call me that again I'm gonna go get my claw hand and use it."
"Love you too, bunch of fun."
Pomni looked at Ragatha. She was taking deep breaths and looked like she had seen a ghost. Pomni stood up out of her chair with a nervous look, nearly tripping on her own feet.
"Are you okay, Raga-"
"I'm going to go to my room now, I think. Have a... a fun time with the adventure, everyone." Ragatha blurted out.
She quickly collected herself and started walking away from the table. Gangle had started whispering something in Zooble's ear, and the masked ribbon girl looked sympathetically at Ragatha as she passed them. Pomni followed the ragdoll, having to jog due to her short legs. @*$! the creators of the circus for making her so short. They had both gotten back to the hallway of personal rooms by the time Ragatha noticed Pomni was alongside her. Ragatha stopped, the pair standing in front of her door.
"Oh, Pomni. I didn't see you there, haha." Ragatha said with a shaky voice.
“Ah! I'm sorry for, well, just kinda following you." Pomni said, looking at the ground.
"No, it's alright, hun, really! I just... needed to get away from all that, you know?" Ragatha responded, rubbing her arm with her hand.
"Hey, you don't have to justify yourself, Ragatha! I get it, really, I do!"
Ragatha hummed quietly to herself, her one eye looking at nothing in particular.
"Thank you Pomni, I appreciate it," Ragatha said quietly.
Pomni looked up at the doll with sad eyes, glancing back and forth down the hallway.
"Do... do you want to talk about it? I mean, if you want to?" Pomni asked.
Ragatha smiled a gentle smile and shook her head, her red curls bouncing side to side.
"I'm alright, really,” Ragatha said as she grabbed the doorknob. “I think I'll go work on my sewing, I'll see you later, okay?"
Ragatha turned away and stepped into her room, closing the door behind her. Her smiling portrait was now all that Pomni could see of the doll. She let out a small gasp when she realized-
“Did she just call me… hun?” Pomni whispered to herself. A blush crept up on her face as she rubbed her cheek. She hoped Ragatha couldn’t hear her through the wall. Pomni hoped nothing could be heard from inside or outside the rooms, actually. She preferred they didn’t hear her when she was having one of her worst days.
So far, this must’ve been one of Ragatha’s. Pomni sighed and rubbed her hands together. That #%@^ rabbit. What had Ragatha ever done to him? The ragdoll was always going out of her way to help everyone, even Jax himself. If anyone in the circus deserved any peace, it was her. She was mad, mad at the circus, mad at Jax, mad at the unfairness of it all. It wasn’t fair for her, and it wasn’t fair for Ragatha.
Pomni exhaled heavily out of her nonexistent nose and stomped back off to the main area of the tent. By the time she had gotten back there the only two remaining members were Kinger and Jax. This was the one-time Pomni had ever been glad to see the rabbit.
Jax was currently pestering Kinger, the chess piece quivering with some kind of unknown emotion. It was pretty hard to comprehend what he was feeling at times, a simple pair of eyes making expressions vague at best. Since he was interacting with Jax of all people, Pomni guessed it had to be a negative one.
Jax looked away from Kinger as he heard Pomni approach, his smile only widening upon spotting the beleaguered bobble-headed girl.
“Hey, look who’s back, little miss time bomb!” Jax mocked. “What, your girlfriend back there not up for a heart-to-heart, then?”
He had this coming for a long time, Pomni justified herself as she sprinted up to Jax and punched him in the stomach at full force. With her noodle arms and small frame she didn’t have a lot of it, but the impact still caused the lanky rabbit to stumble backward and fall on his behind with a yelp.
“The &$(?, Squiggles? What’s wrong with you!?” Jax asked, leaning back on his elbows and staring up at her wide-eyed, his typical grin absent.
Pomni winced and rubbed her hand. Her eyes narrowed as she inhaled deeply.
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you!?” Pomni yelled, the bells on her hat jingling as she shook her head. “Why did you do that to Ragatha, you jerk? What’s she ever done to you?!”
Jax sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Kinger had been rapidly flicking his eyes between the both of them the entire time, his hands shivering about.
“Why did you do that Pomni? Jax and I were having a chat about the varieties of moths.” Kinger asked.
“Heh, she’s just mad about me messing with her little girlfriend Rags earlier. Guess she didn’t appreciate my help either.” Jax muttered, looking up at the faraway ceiling.
Pomni’s pale face erupted in a crimson blush as she stuttered.
“Gi-girlfriend? She isn’t my girlfriend, Jax!” Pomni blurted out. “And don’t avoid the question! H-has she ever been anything but nice to you?”
Jax sighed and stood up, stretching his long purple arms. God, how could he even look smug stretching, Pomni wondered. As he got to his normal full height, he towered over the diminutive jester, who couldn’t help but shrink down a bit.
“You wanna know why I did it, Pommers? Really wanna know?”
Pomni gulped and looked at the ground, the walls, Kinger, anything but Jax’s harsh gaze.
“Y… yes,” Pomni said quietly.
“I miss with ol’ doll face 'cause she *needs* me to.”
Pomni flinched and stared wide-eyed at him, her face twisted in confusion. Jax took on a relaxed pose with a hand on his hip, looking down at her. His smile was uncharacteristically tight, and the tone of his voice was almost grim.
"W-what do you mean 'needs'? How could anyone need this- this- this @$*% from you!?"
"You've only been here what, a week? But even you must've noticed what Rags does, right?" Jax asked with a tilt of his head. "The way she's always fawning over everyone, you think that's out of the goodness of her little candy heart?"
Jax adopted a shrill imitation of Ragatha's voice and gestured wildly with his hands in an eerily accurate portrayal of the ragdoll. "'Oh, let's not fight, it may be fun! I'm sure Caine means well!'", oh please!" Jax mocked.
As he spoke, Pomni could feel her digital skin shiver, her eyes twitching about from side to side. She flexed her hand muscles nervously, her hand still sore from the earlier impact.
"Wh-what are you implying?" she asked.
"That she *needs* something to fix, dumb dumb. I've known Rags for a while now, she can't stand bein' on the sidelines. She's just doin' this for herself. Fix Gangle's mask, help Zooble organize their parts, get Kinger his stupid pet tarantula back!"
Kinger blinked and huffed to himself, apparently being cognizant enough to overhear them properly.
"My point is, little clown, that every time I mess with her, every time I put a centipede in her hair, every time I break crybaby's mask, every one of Zoob's arms I hide, she only sees another project," Jax said proudly, his arms raised. "I'm her magnum opus, the one who won't quit! She needs something to work on, or she'll abstract, bet you anything."
Jax glanced around the hall, then in the direction of their rooms. "If anything, I'm doin' her a favor."
The jester took a deep breath and glared at Jax, a quiet rage in her digital heart gave her an unusual confidence.
"She... she's more than that, Jax."
"Oh, really? And how would you know that short stuff?"
"People aren't just projects, you idiot! Maybe your messed up mind sees it like that, but-" Pomni screamed. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her voice coming out louder than she expected. His eyes widened in shock, if only for a moment. He was quick to mask his surprise with a smile and a sigh, Pomni noticed.
"Think whatever you wanna think, Red White N' Blue. I know what's what. Ciao." Jax waved goodbye to the jester as she stood there dumbfounded, strolling back to his room. Jax stopped right before he turned the corner. "Oh, and I'd be careful the next time you go into your room if I were you. Never know what kinds of things might show up in there, ya know?"
Jax laughed to himself and finally left Pomni and Kinger at the table, the poor jester somehow even more frustrated and confused than before. Pomni looked over at the wooden monarch with tired eyes.
“Ugh, has he, y’know, always been like that?” Pomni asked him.
The red-eyed royal stared at her for a few seconds and blinked rapidly.
“Who like what?” Kinger asked.
Pomni’s eye twitched.
“Never mind, Kinger.” She muttered.
Pomni suddenly realized how tired she felt, or at the very least whatever simulated feelings of exhaustion the circus permitted her to feel. She began to trudge towards the hallway of rooms to try and get something resembling sleep.
“Pomni!” Kinger shouted.
“Gah!” Pomni flinched. “W-what?!”
Kinger stood there, disembodied hands twiddling together for a moment. He blinked his bloodshot eyes.
“You care for Ragatha’s well-being, then?” He asked.
Pomni slowly nodded, not entirely sure where he was going with this.
“Then…. you should know Ragatha would never ask for help, even when she really needed it,” Kinger said in a solemn voice. “She didn’t always act like that, you know. When she… first joined us she was *terrified*. Never trusted anyone.”
The jester’s mouth hung open as she listened to the living chess piece speak. She couldn’t imagine a paranoid Ragatha, it seemed impossible for Pomni to consider. Kinger had begun looking up into the distance at nothing in particular, his gaze seeing something Pomni could not. Perhaps reliving old memories.
“She really only came into her own after seeing her first abstraction. She decided that nobody would ever have to feel like that, to get to that point. Not while she was around.” he said. “She’s a good person. You…. seem like a person, too, my dear. She could use someone like you, I think.”
Pomni’s blush returned slightly as she rubbed the top of her hat.
“Oh, no, I mean, I don’t think I’m that special or anything, haha…” she said. “Th-thank you, though, Kinger. I, uh, I appreciate it, I guess.”
There was an awkward silence between them, both of the two standing there in the tent, making increasingly extended eye contact. Suddenly Kinger began rapidly blinking his eyes and flicked his gaze around the area before locking back into Pomni.
“Oh, hello Pomni. What are we doing out here? Is there an adventure?” he asked.
Pomni realized she’d lost him again and sighed.
“No Kinger, just- I’m gonna go to my room, okay? I’ll um, see you later?”
“Okay Pomni, have a good… day night,” he said, staring vacantly into the distance.
As she made her way back to her room, she passed by Ragatha’s, the red-headed face on the door smiling at Pomni. She shut her eyes and rubbed her temples with her fingers as she tried to process what both Jax and Kinger had told her. She stood there, sniffling a bit.
Pomni walked up to the ragdoll’s door and put a gloved hand on the doorknob. There was no way Jax was right, she thought. It was true that Ragatha did like helping others, almost to an unhealthy degree, but to risk abstraction just by not being useful? That was ridiculous. That… that couldn't happen.
She knocked on the door.
Pomni wouldn't let it happen.