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With great caution, Pomni drops a modest armful of large six-sided dice into one of the dresser drawers, shielding her face and clamping her eyes shut as they land inside. She's come to regard anything cube-shaped in the circus as essentially the same threat level as a landmine; if she's going to be having Ragatha stay overnight as a regular thing, letting her room remain a toy-strewn deathtrap is simply beyond the pale. Mercifully, the dice do not explode out of or clip through the dresser. Delicately, she slides the drawer closed and lets out the breath she'd been holding.
Ragatha won't let them use her room, yet, because 'It's not ready for guests' and she's 'working on cleaning it up', allegedly. Pomni's starting to think she just likes stealing the big red armchair in the corner. Glancing to her right, Pomni sees her settled comfortably into it, tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth, set into a good groove stitching together some spare curtains into a cover. The smaller toys in her room can be put away, to try and make her space feel less like clown-kindergarten, but the large letter blocks are going to have to go in a heap and be covered up out of sight. There's nothing else for it, nor for the sort-of gaudy chandelier, nor the big shield-shaped standing mirror in the corner, nor all the curtains on the walls. None of the decor is to Pomni's taste, but, Ragatha suggested that the 'theater-theming', as she put it, might be more appealing if it were at least less infantilizing.
Ragatha catches her staring, looking up from her work-in-progress. She beams a warm smile and stares right back, moony-eyed, like there's nothing else in the world she'd rather be looking at. Pomni glances away first; she hasn't won a staring contest with Ragatha yet and doesn't expect she ever will.
Broken from her trance, Ragatha's gaze wanders the room, stopping on the troublesome heap of blocks in the corner. "...Did you try to spell out, 'Pomni's Room'?"
Pomni's face flushes red. She doesn't need to look; the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes each morning is 'FOMNIS GOOT'.
"...Yep." She sighs, pretending to look for something in the drawers. "I didn't have a P or an R. It would've at least said, 'Fomis Goom', but I kept getting thrown into the wall while trying to slide the M into place."
"I was just thinking, you're braver than I, for touching them at all! Kind of a harsh deal to get the room full of blocks, honestly."
"It's so annoying," Pomni groans, hands clutching invisible, loathsome grapefruits as she gesticulates in frustration. "Why are cubes— what— what's with the f[#!$]ing cubes here? We have hair, and clothes, and even the water works just fine! I thought those were supposed to be the things computers struggled with!?"
"I don't get it either. Actually, Kinger went on a rant once about how much it annoyed him, too. One of the only times I've ever seen him that cross... though, I didn't really get most of what he was saying."
Pomni runs out of drawers to 'search' and opts to just lean against the dresser instead, her need to face away diminishing as the topic changes. "Maybe that's why he uses pillows for his fort?"
"Maybe," Ragatha shrugs. "Or for the cozy factor. Anyway, I think it's cute you still tried. It'd have been a nice little touch."
"I'm just looking forward to never having to look at it again. Thanks for your help, by the way." She offers a gentle little smile back for the doll's trouble.
"You're always welcome, Pomni," Ragatha says, syrupy-sweet, with her full chest and smile and eye and heart and soul. She treasures saying Pomni's name, as if the sound puts the taste of rich chocolate on her lips.
The warmth pouring off her gives Pomni's cheeks a sunburn. She looks away again, straight at the wall this time, half-grumpy about it. Some part of her still always expects one of Ragatha's classic canned Chipper Replies; it's something she got so used to her doing, she basically tuned it out. She remembers watching a short video, ages ago, about 'phatic expressions': words and phrases meant purely for social niceties. Her first impression of Ragatha had reminded her of it, the doll seeming to speak almost exclusively phatically, so devoted to being nice that she rarely had room leftover for substance.
She could easily understand how it'd bother some, but, then, Pomni was white-collar. She's well familiar with the language Ragatha's fluent in: small talk. At her accounting job, she had become, by necessity, an expert in small talk. She even likes small talk, to an extent, even if she hadn't felt it fully appropriate for a place as diet-kafkaesque as the circus.
By contrast, she still isn't used to the almost overwhelming sincerity that Ragatha's taken to now that they've gotten so close. Nobody's ever spoken to her quite like that, before, and she gets the impression that it's new to Ragatha as well. And what a leap forward it is for her, Pomni recognizes, what a special thing that she gets to be perhaps the sole witness to Ragatha's unfiltered heart. She knows enough of the doll's rarely-spoken sordid history to understand the monumental amount of trust and vulnerability she's showing, being so brazenly affectionate like this. It's a precious thing, positively beautiful in its purity, like pristine, fresh honey scraped right from the comb, glistening gold as it's brought to light.
Also like honey, the sticky feeling of it on her skin makes her squirm and itch and want to look for a sink to wash it right off. She hopes she'll acclimate with time. She can't ever shake the heart-twisting thought that all that love and sugar is being wasted on her. In the meantime, she hopes that Ragatha at least thinks it's cute when she plays up her embarrassment.
"I'm pretty much done," Ragatha informs as she makes her last few stitches, snapping the jester out of it. "You'll finally be able to say goot-bye to Fomni!"
"Ugh..." She does her damnedest to hide her smirk.
"Ha, sorry! Couldn't resist." Ragatha stands up (reluctantly) from her beloved red chair, clutching the curtain-turned-cover. It's mostly red, with a few blue sections; it matches the rest of the room well enough. She walks it over to the pile of blocks. "This should do. Let me just... hmm... maybe... you should get behind me? Just in case."
Pomni's happy to oblige, taking cover behind the doll. You never know with cube collisions. "If it starts freaking out, I say we just dive out the door and run."
Ragatha gives a solemn nod over her shoulder. "Okay. One, two..." On 'three', she casts the cover overtop the pile, watching tensely as it gracefully flutters down onto the blocky heap with remarkably sophisticated cloth physics. It settles without issue, and the both of them sigh in relief.
"There!" Ragatha puts her hands on her hips and surveys the room with a bright smile, like a cheery lighthouse. "I think it's looking pretty good in here, now! Actually kinda classy, with all the toys put away. Like the room of a princess..."
Pomni parries her flirt with a dismissive wave. "Pft, nah. Just the princess's favorite jester."
"O-Oh, heh," Ragatha flusters, looking away with a smitten smirk, covered by her hand. "I guess so..." She doesn't catch the impish grin her favorite jester makes in satisfaction, relishing in the rarely-had opportunity to get her back.
"W-Well, what do you want to do now?" Ragatha asks, folding her hands in front of her. She shimmies a little in anticipation, swishing her dress back and forth as she waits for an answer. "We still got most of the night... unless you just want to get some sleep."
Pomni wanders to her bed, hopping onto the mattress. "I dunno. I'm not really tired. We can just hang out for a bit, if you'd like?" she offers, patting the bed next to her.
Ragatha gives another sunny smile as her answer. She takes a moment to sort out her dress before gracefully setting herself on the bed, hands piled neatly in her lap and her eye, half-lidded, focused on her jester.
Squirming some under her unbreaking stare, Pomni scans around the now-clear room, meeting her own gaze in the vanity mirror across from her. Her train of thought derails as she's struck by just how out of place they look next to one another. She tilts her head, noticing for the first time that it's almost bigger than Ragatha's torso. She blinks. Each one of her eyes is about half the diameter of the doll's head.
I bet I could fit her head in my mouth, she thinks, and decides not to say, because that's weird. She looks weird. She is weird. Ragatha, by comparison, looks perhaps the most normal out of any of the circus members, she thinks. Though, perhaps she's biased.
"...What're you thinking about?" Ragatha asks, earnestly curious.
"Mostly just how you're staring at my big dumb head."
"Huh?"
"We have, like, completely different proportions. My head's half the size of your body." Pomni turns to meet her eye, an irritated frown on her platter-wide face. "I look strange next to you, you're so— normal. And I'm so short..."
Her frown is infectious. It transmits to Ragatha in short order, mutating into a strain of sad concern. "...May I touch you?" she asks.
"Uh, sure, go nuts," Pomni answers, always caught off guard when she asks, but always appreciating it.
Ragatha's hands cup her face, one on each cheek, delicate in their touch, thumb pacing slowly back and forth over her blushmark. "I don't think you look weird. I think you're beautiful, Pomni. I love your big dumb head," she says, so kindly that Pomni can't tell if she intended even a sliver of humor. "It's full of my favorite person in the whole world."
She can't help but laugh, eyes retreating to her lap. Her face starts to sizzle again in the doll's light. "You're so sappy..."
"I mean it."
Sighing fondly, Pomni puts a hand overtop the doll's, still holding her cheek. "I know you do."
"...But," Ragatha's smile dims, like a summer's day in the shadow of a passing cloud. She looks down to the floor with a sigh. "I get where you're coming from. Everyone's got some problems with their avatar. Some more than others. It's hard enough to learn to love your body out there, let alone having to start all over in the circus."
"Yeah. It's rough."
"It can be. I don't doubt there's things about your avatar that bother you. I mean, even I have some nitpicks... I don't like how thin or light I am, I got these... mitten... hands... and my eye! Feels cruel that I got a whole new body and still didn't get it back. But..." She frees her hands from Pomni's cheeks to scratch at her neck, looking guiltily off at the vanity mirror. "But, you're right. I'm mostly... human shaped, still? I have hair. And hands. A mouth. None of my body parts come off— not, they're not supposed to, at least. I don't have any big gimmicks. So... I don't know. I hope I don't seem like... I know that I got off easy, is what I'm saying. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I'm not that torn up about it. I don't hate how I look, I guess, but it's weird. Honestly, I got kinda lucky, too? I'm human-looking enough."
"Zooble's got it the worst, obviously," Ragatha says, holding her arm. "Poor dear. Not— I'm not saying that I think their avatar is bad! But, they sure don't like it, is what I mean..."
Pomni gives a patient smile. Ragatha continues. "Gangle, too, having to deal with her comedy mask. It always struck me as so... rotten, that the circus made it so fragile."
"I just wonder if it was 'the circus', or if Caine had some say in it."
Ragatha shrugs. "It's possible, I guess. If he did, I doubt he realized what he was signing some of us up for. Better to not think about it."
Pomni shakes her head. "You're too easy on him."
"Who, Caine? I'm not... eh, maybe, I guess..? I just don't see the point in holding a grudge. He never means it. And he'll never be sorry. It's like being mad at a toddler, it's just, beneath us to even care."
Pomni gives a low whistle. "Whookay. I take it back, that's kinda scathing."
"I-I, didn't really mean it that way..."
"So what if you did? He's not here. Or, um, I guess maybe he could be watching, I don't, really know how serious he was about his 'all seeing eyes', but, if he is, then, then it serves him right!"
"I guess. But he's got feelings, and I'm scared what'll happen if we keep hurting them. One of the few things we can take comfort in here is that he isn't cruel on purpose. If that changes, then, well, great, we'll basically be in hell."
"We are in hell, basically."
"Then what's an angel doing here?" Ragatha's voice is somewhat strained, but she still gives a flirty tilt of her head and a loving smile to help it land.
"Wh—! Whatever," Pomni pouts, looking away. "God, you didn't miss a beat! I'm never safe..." she grumbles through her bashful smile. "Y-You were saying?"
Ragatha frowns. "...Nothing I really want to talk about, honestly. Like I said, best not to think on it— too easy to start spiraling." Seeing Pomni's dissatisfied look, she adds with a patient smile, "I'd know. Just, trust me."
"Alright," she relents, falling back onto the bed with a thwoumph, staring up at the red cloth canopy.
Ragatha's hands mingle with eachother as she keeps her eye on Pomni, letting the motion and the sight of the jester plug up holes in the dam keeping an ocean of thoughts she oughtn't have at bay. She knows firsthand that it only takes one little thing, one crack in the concrete to put you at risk of a flood. A bad day, a falling out, a lonely night, an outstretched hand from the dark, and that's it. Some days, it's as if the weight of all that water in of itself is enough to knock the dam over, the black sea of Damocles hanging overhead. The closer she listens, the closer she looks, the closer it feels. There's always a crack in the wall, somewhere, always growing. Sometimes it can be fixed. Sometimes it cannot.
Her right hand abandons her left and grabs at Pomni's, clinging tight. The jester looks up at her, so kind, so patient, so at her that she could just melt. The black waters boil away, turning into stormclouds somewhere too far away to care. Her breathing calms.
"...I never actually noticed your mitts before," Pomni says, curiously lifting her hand to inspect it, her own fingers tracing between the doll's digits. "You've got a thumb and a pointer, but, like... is this one giant finger, or, is it more like you're wearing mittens?" she asks, pinching at about where Ragatha's ring finger would be.
"That's... a good question! I'm not really sure. I move it like I did my old hands. Same muscle memory. It sort of feels like I'm wearing a mitten... but it's not exactly the same. It's hard to explain."
Pomni's got both hands on hers now, sat up on the bed and turning her arm over like she's inspecting a new toy. "I never noticed your seam, either. Huh."
"O-Oh, that," her smile pulls tight. "It's pretty faint. At least whoever put me together knew what they were doing, right?"
Her face goes all screwy as Pomni delicately trails two fingers up along her seam, starting at her fingertips and moving on to her wrist. She does her best to keep from shivering. "C-Careful! That's— that feels so weird! I'm, I-I guess I'm ticklish there?" Ragatha bites her cheek to keep a deluge of weird little noises from spilling out of her.
"Oh, sorry! Uh... weird as in baaaad...?" Pomni asks, fingers halted at her wrist.
"N-No, it's just sensitive. You, uh, can keep going, if you want. Just, be gentle."
Pomni nods, and sets her hand back on its trail, moving even more slowly now, with a deliberate, featherlight touch. The feeling is about a hundred times more intense than it was when she was being casual about it. Ragatha squirms in her seat, mentally kicking herself. A strangled cross between an 'eek' and a gasp bursts out of her; Pomni halts only for a moment before a devious little grin crosses her face as she retraces her steps. Right above Ragatha's elbow, tucked right beneath the cuff of her dress, is her most sensitive spot (so far). Nobody's ever touched her there before— why would they? The jester paces her fingers up and down over it, watching in delight as Ragatha jolts and twitches and sputters with each pass.
"Never would've guessed you were so ticklish..." Pomni muses, cheerily cataloging this information for later.
"M-M-Me n-neither!" Ragatha watches, baffled, as Pomni gets a glint in her eyes while lifting her arm up to her face. With no warning, she opens up her jaw and bites down— gently, at least— right onto her seam, her teeth slipping into the small stitched groove. Neither of them are sure exactly how to describe the noise that the doll makes, somewhere between "Ack" and "Eeeek", with a faint dash of birdsong.
"Whaaat are you doing!?" she squeaks, burning red like a hot stove.
Pomni gnaws on her arm, apparently satisfied by the high level of give the plush cotton-filled limb offers. Her teeth have gone triangle-sharp as she treats the doll like a chewtoy, though not ungently. "...Iuernuooo?" she mumbles out, trance half-broken and teeth still clamped down as her pupils shrink and shyly glance up at Ragatha. "Grwrng uhn hr rrm...?"
"Okay???" Ragatha laughs uncertainly. "Have? Fun??"
She does just that, turning her arm over and giving each section of it a manic little nibble as if it were a corncob. Already feeling completely ridiculous, she plays it up, making dog growling noises that come out a lot more puppy-ish than she'd like. Each flummoxed giggle she gets out of Ragatha serves only as encouragement, and soon enough she's got the doll in a full laughing fit.
Then, another glint. Lost in the sauce, the intrusive thoughts win. She places her teeth gently on Ragatha's arm, and with one quick motion, flicks her head sideways, gliding her teeth across the fabric, producing an audible zzzwip!
"AUGHK!" is her initial statement, as she recoils back with tongue stuck out and face scrunched up in horror at the sensation of cloth-rubbing-on-teeth. "Agh! Eurgh! EEWAWWAHGH!", she adds, further corroborating her point.
"Why did you do that!?" Ragatha counters, not following in the least. She covers her grin with her not-slobbered-on hand, shaking her head through her laughter.
"I don't knowwww! I'm stupid! F[#!$] that was awful! Why did I do that!"
"I don't know! You got this— silly puppy look in your eye and just went for it!" Ragatha dries her arm off on Pomni's blanket.
Pomni sits criss-cross-applesauce, hands perched in front of her like some kind of grossed-out dinosaur with her face locked in a deep-seated cringe. "...Eueuerurgh...!" she concludes, settling the matter. Ragatha soothes with a gentle pat on her shoulder.
"I'm tryna think—" Pomni barely manages through the miserable aftershocks. "—if I have any weird little spots like that. With my, uh, avatar..."
"Hmm... under your hat, maybe?" Ragatha suggests, concealing her anticipation, her dry hand up at her chin and the other supporting her elbow.
"Oh, I can't take it off. It's fused to me."
"Really? Then why do you have a spare...?" The doll asks, glancing over at the extra jester's hat on the vanity.
Pomni answers with an exasperated shrug and a yeah, right? sort of look.
"You wear different hats on the adventures, sometimes..?" Ragatha tilts her head, perplexed.
"Yeah. I don't get it either. I think they just go overtop of this one; they always feel way too tight." Her hand drifts up to fiddle with one of the baubles. "Oh! Here's one: these things? They still feels like a hat, kinda, but, they're way more sensitive than you'd think. Drives me f[#!%]ing nuts when people grab them."
Ragatha takes quiet note to never touch her cute baubles, apparently. No matter how tempting it may be. "Huh. That's interesting. Maybe... they're like antennae? Bugs often have them to feel their way around!" She guesses, remembering some of what Kinger's told her over the years.
A steadily growing look of abject revulsion takes over Pomni's face as she pictures pulling off the hat and seeing a set of roachish antennae flicking about. "I hate that... oh my god, you're probably right... I'm a weird little bug..." her voice drips with misery. "You've cursed me. You've cursed me to be a bug."
"Oh... no, no-no-no, I didn't mean—! I'm so sorry, Pomni, I, I just thought—! I'm sorry," Ragatha sputters back, eye darting and voice quaking with barely-contained panic.
"Wh— Hey, hey, no, it's okay, you're okay! I'm just kidding, Ragatha. You're okay. C'mere..."
Ragatha quickly fights her breathing back under control, her heart still pounding as Pomni pulls her into a hug. "I-I'm sorry..." she sighs, feeling stupid. "I mean, obviously you were. I should've known that..."
Pomni doesn't necessarily disagree, but she keeps the thought to herself. "It's okay. I'm not upset at you, I promise."
"Okay..." She holds Pomni tight, trying to be mindful of her baubles. The jester rocks her gently back and forth, and she's surprised at just how fast it seems to calm her down. "...I meant it in a cute way. You're... ha, because, you're red and colorful and I'm always happy to see you, so... so I thought, 'you're my little ladybug'..."
Pressed into Ragatha's chest, Pomni makes a misty-eyed version of the face that's emblazoned on her door, her heart melting instantaneously. "That's... Aww! I don't hate that, actually. I take it back. I can be you're, um, that."
They stay locked together for a minute or so, Pomni tracing soothing circles on her back. She hates to see Ragatha lose her nerve, especially with her (she wonders what more she has to do to be 'safe' in her eyes)(Shush. Be patient), but at least, she takes great satisfaction in helping Ragatha's heart settle back into a steady rhythm. Although, she can't hear it especially well— no ears, and all. Curious, she puts one of her baubles to the doll's chest, and to her chagrin, it works more or less like a stethoscope.
They really are antennae...
...Wait.
"You have a heartbeat?" she asks, the question bubbling out of her involuntarily.
"...Why wouldn't I?"
"You're made of cotton. We're all— I mean, why would any of us have heartbeats? We don't have blood."
Ragatha hums. "I guess so. I've never really questioned it. Maybe if we didn't have one, we'd panic, or be unable to adjust? Same with breathing. Easier to just simulate it, even if it doesn't make sense?"
Pomni goes still, trying to listen for her own. She can't tell if its there— she hasn't been paying it any mind. "Do you think I have one too?"
"Probably! Do... you want me to check?"
The jester nods, breaking the hug. The two of them share a brief moment of awkward visual calculus, trying to figure out how exactly Ragatha's going to get her head to Pomni's chest from here given the height difference.
Ragatha opts to guide her gently down to the bed and onto her back as she cuddles up, pressing her cheek in between the jester's coat buttons and listening closely. "Ah... yep, you do!"
"...Huh. Does it... sound weird?"
"It sounds big and healthy."
Pomni smirks. "If you mean big as in enlarged, then, that usually isn't healthy."
Ragatha rolls her eye. "I mean like the Grinch."
"...Shriveled and horrible???"
"No! He— it grew three sizes that day! Three! It broke the little x-ray machine!"
"I don't remember that in the film." she says, pretending that she remembers any of the film.
"In the 1966 version! The only good one!"
"...How long have you been here?"
"Oh, hush, you," she pauses to yawn. "That special is timeless."
Hesitant at first, Pomni's hand runs through the doll's hair, her thumb twiddling the thick red yarn. Looks kind of like licorice, she thinks, once again suppressing the loving urge to bite her. Fun to play with, not to eat.
Ragatha adjusts herself, getting comfortable. A contented little hum escapes her.
"Sounds like you want to get some sleep," Pomni observes.
"Mmm. Maybe. That's what tends to happen when you run your hand through my hair and let me cuddle up to you."
"Am I really all that comfy?"
Ragatha nuzzles into her chest. "I think so. You're kinda rubbery. In a good way! Like... uh..." she hesitates, trying to think of a comparison that won't curse her, this time. "Like a big warm stress ball."
Pomni giggles, imagining being held in Ragatha's hand and squeezed tight, head swelling and eyes bugging out of her face. She bets she'd make a squeaky-toy noise. "Still not as cozy as you. You're basically a big pillow." She hugs Ragatha tighter to emphasize her point— she's nothing but give, warm like a dryer-fresh blanket in winter, soft like a clean bed after a long day.
Pomni catches Ragatha's smitten little grin before she buries her face in her chest, happily scoring another 'point' against her. Her fingers trace through the doll's red hair, her other hand rested comfortably on her back, feeling the peaceful rise and fall of her breathing.
She looks a little too long at her hands, and the moment fractures like glass. Her fingers are too large, too round. She wishes so dearly she could take these stupid steamboat-willie-ass gloves off. She wishes she had all five fingers, instead of four. She wishes she could be normal. Most of all, she wishes she could understand just what the hell Ragatha is seeing when she looks at her so fondly.
"...You said you thought I was beautiful, earlier," Pomni says, voice soft and thin. "Is that true? I-I mean, I'm sure you meant it, I'm not saying otherwise. But... objectively, I mean, do you think that?"
Ragatha looks up at her sympathetically, still snuggled in close. "Objectively...? I think you're objectively cute, that seems to have been the intention with your, design. But, there really isn't such a thing as 'objectively' beautiful—"
"I know, I know that! I just... I want to believe you. I want to just take what you said to heart. But... it's really hard to, when this is the skin I'm wearing, now."
"Would you have found it any easier to believe me, if we met in the real world?"
The question pierces through her. Pomni's memories of her life before are clear in some places, sparse in others. Almost all of them, beyond the surface facts, are so utterly dissonant with her current existence that they almost physically hurt to hold in her mind. With each passing day, her memories get filed deeper and deeper down in her mind, never fully discarded, but ever-less accessible. Now, though, an unpleasant handful returns to her. She remembers staring down into sinks when washing her hands, avoiding her reflection. She remembers wearing baggy black-and-gray clothes, hoodies, company-provided buttonups, and anything else devoid of personal statement. She doesn't recall hating how she looked— no more than anyone does, she always figured. But she remembers, most distinctly of all, how obvious, how natural it seemed that nobody would ever have cause to look at her like Ragatha did, right in her eyes, and tell her point blank from the bottom of their heart: I think you're beautiful.
Ragatha continues, trying to channel the wise manner Kinger always has, every time he's talked her out of a slump. "I wouldn't have. I put a lot of effort into looking pretty. My mom forced me to, for most of my life. By the time I was on my own, I was just so used to doing it, I never really thought to stop. It was also... just kind of something people expect of a lady, in my line of work. So I'd get my hair done, and keep it brushed neat and healthy. I'd get my clothes tailored. I'd try to watch my weight— heh, emphasis on try," she laughs, Pomni feeling the vibration of it through her chest. "I knew I 'looked pretty'. But I never felt like anyone saw me as beautiful. I was— well, I was pretty like a doll is. Just, inoffensive to the eyes."
She leans up off Pomni's chest, held above her on outstretched arms, making eye contact that the jester does her best to return. "Pomni, when I say I think you're beautiful, I don't mean 'pretty'. I do think you're pretty— but, like I said before, I understand that it's a... messy subject. What I mean is, you're beautiful. The way you carry yourself, all the kind expressions you make, the gentle way you talk. The fire you have in you. The way you make me feel. Not how you look, how you are. I see it. I see past your exterior, and I like to think I'd have seen past it out there, too. Whatever skin you wear, you're beautiful to me in a way that will always escape it."
The chandelier's light shines on Ragatha's back, casting her in an incandescent glow as Pomni lays in her shadow. The jester looks godfearingly up at her, up at this angel, like a terrified little cockroach. Her ears ring. Her vision swims, eyes misting. Her chest goes so tight, she's worried she'll start shifting hue. All the while, Ragatha looks down at her, with that unbearable kindness behind her eye, with that intolerable gentle smile on her face, impossibly perfect, impossibly loving, impossibly directed at her.
And unbearably, impossibly, completely absent from her life, up until now. Over twenty-five long years without sunshine.
She hasn't the slightest idea what to do with her love, like an insect watching the aurora. All she can perceive is the light and warmth and the basic facts of this divine thing, reduced to mere stimuli in her uncomprehending eyes. Nobody has ever said something so nakedly and purely kind to her, so specifically to her before. The thought of taking it fully into her heart terrifies her. The thought of losing it is even worse. How can she ever hold something so innately and clearly precious, so important, so easily broken or mishandled or outright lost, especially in the circus?
Why the hell does Ragatha think she could ever give back what she's been given?
All the tension in her chests snaps, feeling inside like an earth-shattering implosion but producing only a quiet little whimper. Tears pour from her eyes, streaking to the bed down her temples. She doesn't cry all that often. Only a handful of times since getting stuck in the circus, even. She wishes she had somewhere to look where Ragatha wouldn't fill her vision, any way to stop staring right at the sun.
Ragatha lowers herself down next to her, curled up by her side and nuzzling into her shoulder, cooing soft comforts into the ears she doesn't have. Mercifully, for once, the doll doesn't seem to blame herself for Pomni's emotions.
Unmercifully, the jester feels like she's burning alive, the moment still intolerably bright.
I love you, she knows she should say. She wants to say. She opens her mouth, to try and let it out, but only another whimper escapes her. It's an ugly noise, of fear and weakness and failure.
Neither of them have said it, yet. She assumes they're both scared to, for their own reasons. Neither of them had even really admitted what they are, never addressing the fact that they've clearly passed the margin of 'friends' a long time ago. They're just 'close'. They just 'care a lot'. They're just always there, being one another's reason to wake up another day.
Pomni holds her close, her skin burning, her brain boiling, her heart bursting in her chest, terrified of the searing feeling of her love being frozen over if she pushes her away. She knows what happens, when you push people away. She has no interest in learning what the other side is like.
"...Are you alright, sweetheart?" Ragatha asks softly.
"N... no..." she chokes back, throat tight and voice warbly like a snotty little kid.
"Do you need space?"
Pomni tries to say, 'yes', and fails. She nods instead, rolling onto her side, facing the room.
Ragatha pulls away, sitting crosslegged behind her— out of her line of sight, but still close. Not too hot, not too cold. As if she'd read her mind. A smile tugs at the jester's twisting face, ever so briefly.
"Ugh... I'm sorry," Pomni manages as a whisper, voice shattered. "We were having a nice night."
"I still think we are. Don't apologize for feeling what you do. I'm..." she stops herself, swallowing the apology at the back of her throat. "I didn't mean to overwhelm you, but, I stand by what I said. And I'm here."
Pomni gives another whimper. Feeling cold, she rolls over the other way and drops her head in Ragatha's lap, hugging her knees to her chest. "Thanks..."
"You're always welcome, ladybug." she says, ever so faintly tentative, but still bursting with affection. She places one hand on her jester's head and tenderly rubs back and forth, still minding the baubles. At Pomni's current angle, flopped on her side, it isn't easy. They dangle tantalizingly.
"...You can touch them," Pomni says with a sigh, reading her mind. "Just this once."
Gingerly, Ragatha takes one of the baubles in her hand like the egg of a songbird fallen from its nest. Her mitt closes around it, as she strokes the side of it with her thumb. To her delight, Pomni nuzzles deeper into her lap in response, immediately content. It's like with her horses, she thinks, when she would scratch that one perfect spot behind their ears. Or, in Barrel's case, under his chin, but only if his chin was wet. She smiles, bittersweet.
She bids away all the aching thoughts of how lovely it would have been to take Pomni riding— that's just one more thing she'll never have again, but she does have this. She has her ladybug.
Pomni stays curled in her lap for a long while, slowly shifting from burning to embarrassed to peaceful. Ragatha's affection is still intense to her, somehow, unignorable in its presence; her mind simply cannot be persuaded to focus on anything else. But in her lap, it seems, she's found an ideal spot of shade, to shelter from the blazing sun while still enjoying its light.
Her heart swells as she finally notices Ragatha humming to her, a gentle, soothing melody that must've already been going on for a while, by now. Somehow, that's the last straw. She pushes herself up from her lap and onto her own knees, leaning in close. Ragatha smiles with a tilted head, curious but fully open as the jester stares her down, trying to decide what she's going to do with this sudden, formless initiative filling her chest. She feels her retina burning blue then green as she meets Ragatha's kindly gaze, but despite the intensity, despite the heat, despite everything, she knows how she feels.
I love you, she needs to say. Looking back at her doll, she feels it now more than she ever has with anyone. The words live in her heart, beyond mere emotion, searing into her soul like divine mandate.
...And yet, she cannot get it out. Fear of the burning light before her and fear of the terrible icy freeze of its absence lock her in wretched thermostasis. She stares dumbly at her sunshine, idly marveling at her tremendous patience.
Ragatha goes to put a hand on her cheek again, but she flinches away. The brief look of sadness that crosses her face breaks her heart; she grabs the doll's hand and plants it at its rightful spot.
"You're so precious to me, Ragatha." The words rise from her soul like vapor, somehow taking form through her voice.
Ragatha looks back in surprise, at first. Her wide-eyed expression soon gives way to something resembling euphoria. "...You're precious to me too," she tearily says, pulling Pomni to her chest and holding her tight. Without hesitation, she presses her lips to the jester's forehead and gives a soft kiss.
Pomni is terrified and addicted, obsessed and averse, overjoyed and overwhelmed. Feelings too big to fit in her head all at once loom over her like a crashing moon. She doesn't know where to start, with the feelings. She doesn't know how to say what she knows she needs to. She doesn't know why this is so difficult for her, when she's normally so comfortable with connection. She doesn't know where to stand beneath her sunshine, and she doesn't know what she'd ever do if she lost her.
She knows she wants to be here, in her arms, and that's about it. So for now, she blocks out the heat, and the fear, and everything else, and leans in to Ragatha's embrace.
I love you, she can only think. Pomni hopes she can hear it anyway, somehow.