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Pomni couldn't sleep. A feeling all too familiar, even in the real world. Maybe she just hadn't been trying hard enough. She tossed and turned for a few more digital minutes before groaning and throwing the covers off of her.
A bit too forcefully, maybe, as the sheet falls onto the floor of her themed room. Her room still is all a bit too much, even in the dark. The colors are still too bright, and it all seems...childish.
Sitting on the edge of her canopied bed, she looked around her room. She wondered why Caine chose this as how her room looked. Red curtains hanging on the walls without a window to cover. Actually, the lack of windows in itself was eerie. Like a prison. That chandelier that was far too bright for any human when it was on. There was a dresser across from her bed. This confused her most of all. She can't really change much about her appearance, that's all Caine’s doing, so why have it? Her pinwheel eyes in the mirror look back at her sitting upon her bed and she shifts her gaze. There's a hat sitting on the dresser too, just like the one she dons now. She wishes she could remove this big dumb hat. She remembers Ragatha saying something like 'it's nice to have a bit of a routine' and she thought that might include a change of clothes. But here she is wearing the same thing she usually does in her room. The room that looks just like her stupid jester outfit and just the amount of tacky red and blue that filled the space made her sick. She knew she just had to get outta there.
She opened her door, which creaked louder than she had anticipated as it opened. She peered around the hallway, glancing at her castmates' doors and eventually onto the strangers' doors that have been marked out with Xs. She has been dying to know more about these people. They were people too. They had lived here once. Across from her. Maybe in a different life they would have gotten to know each other. She did technically 'meet' Kaufmo, although she'd like to think he wasn't exactly all himself at the time. Ragatha and Gangle mentioned he liked to make jokes, whether or not they were all that funny. She wishes she could hear one. Was that weird? Hearing a stupid joke would have definitely been better than being chased around the circus.
She realized she hadn't even left her room, just awkwardly standing in the doorway. She initially only stopped to make sure that that loud ass door didn't wake anyone else up. Guess she got lost in thought. She stepped out and started walking out of the hallway.
She didn't know where she wanted to go. Just wanted to get out of that room. It's like Caine designed it so bad to get her outta there and into the main tent. For adventures... Pomni didn't like how well that added up. She liked to just imagine Caine as being ignorant but trying his best. But the idea of this room being designed to piss her off, well, pissed her off.
She would have continued that thought had she not heard a noise. Shit. What was that?
Pomni isn't scared of the dark. She hasn't been for a long time. But there is something about hearing a noise in the dimly lit circus that she's not exactly supposed to be wandering around in that made her heartbeat quicken. She couldn't pinpoint exactly where it came from but luckily she heard it again. It was coming from a distant corner of the circus, which she made her way to.
A door, Like one of the many she tried looking for Caine in on her first day at the circus. She could hear clattering and what sounded like someone humming from behind it. Guess she wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.
She gently opened it, and, to her dismay, it creaked its way open like her bedroom door did. "[BOINK], Sorry if I startled you, it's just me".
"Oh, hey Pomni", said a somewhat tired sounding ragdoll. "What are you doing up at this hour?"
"I couldn't sleep...And I guess I wanted a change of scenery"
Ragatha chuckled a bit. "Yea, I get that."
Pomni's eyes had finally adjusted to the brighter lighting of this room and she looked around. It appeared to be a kitchen.
"Since when has this been here?" Pomni asked. A bit of a dumb question, she realizes, because she hadn't truly explored the circus much outside of that first day. Getting punched twice makes it not that incentivizing to continue exploring. Plus, Caine kept them busy all the time so there wasn't time to dilly dally around. There's probably loads more little places like this she hasn't discovered.
Ragatha thought for a moment. "Umm... I don't know exactly how long ago but I think someone suggested the idea of a kitchen to Caine. I come down here for tea every once and a while." She pauses. "Would you like a cup?"
"Oh, uh sure". Not particularly. She had been more of a coffee person in the real world but something about the general kind gesture and awkwardness made her feel obligated to accept.
Ragatha nods and grabs the kettle of the stove to start some water boiling. Pomni awkwardly hoists herself onto the counter, a task that was easier in her human body compared to her shorter jester avatar.
"Is there a reason you're down here?" Pomni asks. Ragatha turns around and upon seeing Pomni sitting on the counter she smiles a bit and chuckles.
"Huh? Oh, about the same as your reason. Change of scenery.." She trails off a bit and turns back around. She appears to be thinking about something else. Pomni wants to know but doesn't want to intrude more than she already has interrupting the ragdolls kitchen time.
She lets the silence between them be as her mind wanders. She thought about the kitchen in her apartment. Sometimes during rough nights, she would take a break from tossing and turning to go grab a snack. Waiting for the microwave while sitting on the counter, as she's doing now, except with her cat instead of with a ragdoll in a weird colorful tent. She sighed then realized she broke the silence.
"Everything okay over there?" Ragatha asked. She looked a bit concerned as she set the tea bag in the cup to steep.
"Huh? Oh.. Yeah. Just thinking about um... My apartment." Pomni didn't say too much else. In all honesty she didn't even want to be thinking about her apartment. She at least has her roommate to take care of her cat but it did hurt to think about leaving her behind for this digital hellscape.
Clearly this wasn't what Ragatha thought she was going to say as she appeared a bit caught off guard then switching quickly back to her supportive demeanor. Whatever she had been planning to say when she initially turned around wasn't going to work now so she took a moment to think.
"This time of night just gets my mind wandering." Pomni said, interrupting the ragdolls' thoughts. "Especially when you can't sleep".
Ragatha nodded and made a sound of agreement as she gently slid the cup of tea to Pomni. Pomni noted how tired she sounded. It was a bit of a change from her usual cheerful attitude. Ragatha also noticed.
"Sorry... I don't mean to sound dismissive, I'm just tired".
"I didn't take it as dismissive." Pomni responds truthfully.
"Im.. gonna head to bed now. Goodnight Pomni." Ragatha says, taking her cup and starting for the door.
"Night."
Sitting alone in the kitchen, Pomni somewhat missed the company. She's still not completely certain that Ragatha didn't mind her being in there. She definitely didn't expect her. Or maybe she was, in fact, very tired. Perhaps what Pomni had taken as her being lost in thought was actually her focusing on not falling asleep into the boiling kettle. She took a sip of the tea ragatha had made her
Eating in the digital circus is weird. Drinking is too. But the beverage was nice. It was warm and was gently sweet. She remembered always thinking of tea as watery leaf juice, it surprised her actually liking it. Maybe if she was more of a tea person, she could pinpoint the flavor but alas she can only describe it as pretty good.
She gets why Ragatha was in here now. The warmness from the tea washes over her body and makes her feel a bit drowsier. Maybe she should go back to her room and attempt to sleep again. But the idea of returning to that room didn't sound pleasant, besides, maybe there is some other cool secret she could find. A place more peaceful than her room? Although peaceful has never been a word used to describe the circus.
She finished her tea and headed out back to the main area of the tent. Opening more mystery doors didn't sound too nice, she really didn't want to be punched a third time. She thought about maybe wandering onto the grounds. The moon freaked her out just a bit though and wanted to avoid her. Then she spots the pillow fort on the circus floor. Not exactly her own original place to find in the circus but she had always wanted to know what was inside.
She walked over to it and stopped at the entrance. Is Kinger in there? He shouldn't be. He has his own room. It's nighttime. But... She found her room to not be the most enjoyable place in the circus and Ragatha seemed to relate (At least she thinks, she's harder to read when she's tired). It wouldn't be crazy to think that maybe Kinger hides in the pillow fort BECAUSE he is avoiding his room. Or maybe his abstracted wife’s room.
"Pomni?" came a familiar voice from inside the fort. Ok, I guess he is in here.
"Oh! I-umm.. I didn't know if you were in here". God she was a bit embarrassed.
"Is- Is everything okay?" He asked. He seemed a bit concerned.
"Oh yeah, I'm just taking a little walk around the circus I guess". Pomni shuffled a bit, then realizing she didn't like how she said that, she added, "I couldn't sleep".
"You're not the first one I've run into at this hour actually".
"Hmm.. I guess it is one of the few times of day the circus is peaceful enough to explore." He chuckles a bit. It put her at ease a bit, and she smiled at him. He seems pretty lucid; she hardly blames him for being a bit crazy with the regular bright colorful atmosphere the circus is usually painted with. It is actually... Quite peaceful. At least at this moment. Much more peaceful than being stuck in the basement of that creepy mansion last time they were together alone.
“Who else did you run into?” He asked curiously.
“Ragatha, she made us tea. I didn’t know the circus had a kitchen”
“Oh, right. It’s a bit tucked away and since we don’t exactly need to eat, it gets forgotten. But it's a nice little spot.” He paused to think for a minute before continuing, “I think it was from Caine's holiday themed adventures. And someone suggested we have a kitchen in the circus…Ribbit maybe?”
She’s heard the name Ribbit mentioned before. Just quietly uttered then quickly moved on. She does know that they abstracted and that they were the most recent abstraction other than Kaufmo. This ribbit person is mysterious though, Pomni would like to know more about them but she felt a bit uncomfortable asking about abstracted people. She didn’t want to bring up painful memories for the other circus members.
“Would you like to come in?” He said which interrupted her train of thought. “It’s not the tidiest right now but that doesn’t matter”.
“Oh uh sure” she said as she felt the sleepiness starting to catch up with her. She crouched just a bit and entered the fort. Guess she was getting her wish to see inside. It was darker than the rest of the circus but cozier because of the pillow lining the walls and a good portion of the floor. Strewn across the floor were various stray pillows and a few blankets that didn’t look at all like the blanket that now sits on the floor of her room. The colors were softer, more muted and it had that imperfect perfect handmade look to it. She moved closer to one of the blankets that looked like a quilt. It had carefully embroidered bugs on it.
“That's one of my favorites,” Kinger said, taking note of her choice to take a closer look at it. “My wife started it and that one…” He pulled at the blanket and it unfolded to show a much scrapper looking embroidered butterfly, “That's my attempt. She tried her best explaining embroidery to me but that's the best I could do”. He laughed a bit which Pomni couldn’t help but smile at.
“I like it, I doubt I could do much better,” she added. Pomni thought back to the doors of the abstracted people that lined the hallway. Kinger’s door was close to another chess piece door, she could only assume that was his wife. The brown queen with brown eyes. Everything Pomni has heard about her has been from Kinger so maybe the others never met her. They seemed confused when she mentioned it in the bar adventure. Although, so was Kinger. She seems nice. Is that weird? She hasn’t even heard much else about this woman other than knowing she was close with Kinger. Pomni realized she was zoning out a bit and she could just ask Kinger more about her.
“Soo. You’re wife? She was in the circus too, did she ever meet the everyone else? Like the group I know?” She wasn’t a fan of how she worded her question but before she could regret it too deeply, Kinger started to speak.
“No. She abstracted a little before Ragatha joined. So she never got to meet any of you.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment before continuing. “I think she’d like you all. She was really good at talking to people. She would have loved to get to know everyone who's currently here.”
“Even Jax?” Pomni responded, she meant it a bit as a joke but it came out harsher than intended. Being tired makes her come off a bit more rude. Always has.
Without missing a beat Kinger responds “Yes, even Jax.” He softly chuckled and continued. “He might be a bit of a pest but she’d find a way to appreciate him. That’s what’s so incredible about her”.
Kinger talked a bit more about how he thinks his wife would interact with the current circus members. He talks about her so tenderly with the utmost admiration in his eyes. It was so sweet. If Pomni ever gets out of here she’s gotta find someone who will talk about her the way Kinger talks about his wife. She propped herself on a pillow, still listening to him talk. He wasn’t rambling like he would be normally, just talking.
She gets why he spends so much time in here now. It's awfully cozy and warm and just dark enough. Of course Kinger has the best spot in the circus. She was getting a bit too tired to ignore and a yawn escaped from her.
Kinger paused on talking about his wife to ask her “Tired? You should go back to your room and get some sleep before morning”. Pomni shifted a little uncomfortably at the idea of returning to her room. Kinger took notice and added “Well I guess you can stay here with me if you’d like. The fort isn’t exactly designed for two people anymore but I have the space”.
Maybe if she were still plagued by wakefulness, she would have found it weird to sleep in the fort with Kinger. But, sitting almost laying on this pillow, the thought didn’t even occur to her. She just nodded with appreciation and picked a corner to call hers for the rest of the digital night.
Closing her eyes, she found it much easier to drift off into a semi-unconscious state. Some combination of the tea from Ragatha and a nice conversation with Kinger did indeed work and make her tired. As loud and overstimulating the circus usually is during the day, somehow, she had found peace, something she couldn’t always do when she was awake at ungodly hours in the real world. And she drifted off, content…For now. :)