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She tried to not do anything. She swore.
She felt better after everything her and Kinger talked about the theoretical problems plaguing her mind. She swore.
But even then, even when she knew it wasn't her responsibility, even when logically it wasn't her fault at all, she couldn't stop feeling the guilt associated with it. The guilt she felt when she thought about how she failed Pomni.
Just like how she failed Jax.
And Kaufmo.
And Ribbit.
And now, herself.
As she walked away from the little awarding ceremony they had in the pop-up theater the ringmaster set up, she felt like her own footsteps grew heavier approaching her room.
She was barely through the door of her room when she felt the tears escape her eye.
She closed the door behind her gently.
Too gently.
It was too slow.
She didn't want to go any faster for fear that if she even just attempted to speed it up, she'd end up slamming it.
Just like her mother used to do.
And they'd think the same of her the way people thought of her mother.
Resentful, mean, throwing tantrums when things didn't go her way.
Hah, that's what this probably was, right?
A tantrum.
Her mother would have never let her hear the end of it if she knew this was what happened.
She was just overreacting, wasn't she?
It was always like this.
A good thing happens, she gets to 'resolve' some emotions out, and she spends a considerable amount of time in good spirits, only for it to drop off like a cliff you didn't know was there.
She didn't deserve the happiness if feeling it made the 'down' moments all the more drastically lonely and painful.
She leaned her back against her door and slid down to the floor. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, feeling herself be the smallest she's been in a long time.
She heard idle chatter from the other side of the door followed by laughter. Her chest stuttered achingly, and her head start to throb. This prompted her to shut her eye tightly and have her hands pull harshly at her curls.
She kept pulling so hard that she felt a few loose threads give way at the seams of her scalp. She sighed, having another wave of fresh tears start to drip from both her good eye and from underneath her button eye.
It was a weird feeling - the feeling of relief when the pressure in her head disappeared paired with the sensation of seams ripping that gave her phantom pain. She felt a bit of stuffing peek out from the bursted seams.
She stood and headed to the vanity in this little dollhouse-themed room of hers.
Thankful the vanity mirror wasn't warped like the usual mirror a dollhouse would have made of plastic, she observed herself and greeted her reflection with a tired expression.
In the drawer of her vanity, there was a set of provided needles, a pair of scissors, and thread. There was no apt need for these as their avatars would always reset after a day cycle in this digital world, but it proved handy when she wanted a quick fix so she wouldn't be as inconvenienced (ie. her button eye getting removed, or seams of her arms or legs bursting from any strenuous adventure).
However, she also found another use for these tools. Needles or anything sharp that stabbed at her weren't painful, but she found that blades similar to those of a knife's or a pair of scissors could cause a greatly unpleasant experience closest to what she could consider pain.
Her scissors just happened to be very sharp, partially attributed to her constant maintenance of the tool.
She picked those up, and positioned it in an angle she was sure could cut at her canvas skin.
With a slow and careful slash, a cut formed and gave way to stuffing that escaped through the newly formed hole.
It didn't exactly hurt, but the sensation and the movement was familiar to her, still accustomed to expect pain whenever she would end up doing something similar in the real world.
She didn't notice how much she'd repeated her actions until there was a considerable amount of stuffing at her feet while more peeked out of the holes on her arms, neck, and legs.
With how her arms couldn't even hold onto the scissors, having lost a significant amount of firmness, she ultimately decided she was skipping dinner tonight. It wasn't like dolls needed to eat anyway.
For the rest of the evening and late into the night, she stared at her reflection, seeing a doll that deserved every bit of damage she had to showcase right now.
The urge to abstract was so strong, but she couldn't even do that. How pathetic could she get?
She thought that fully abstracting was something that would bring her relief. It would end it all.
It wasn't worth it.
She needed herself to suffer.
Thus, as traces of a painful glitch lingered at the holes she made herself, she relished in the freshness of the sensation before willing it away just as the glitches were about to coalesce.
Ragatha inspected herself once more, this time almost reverently at her decrepit state.
Perhaps a doll can look pretty just like this. With fiberfill poking out, seams bursting, loose threads dangling, and edges of fabric fraying.
Perhaps everyone who would see her, especially her mother, would appreciate the view of a doll who deserved every bad thing it had to go through. They wouldn't feel bad even at the sight of it, just maybe a bit horrified and morbidly fascinated.
They would look at her through a glass case just exactly as she was - a ragdoll no one wanted to play with anymore because it was too damaged to the point it couldn't even stand on its own.