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Divinity.
A state of godlike being, comparable only to the God of the Old Testament.
Although Ragatha had been born and raised in 'God's country', the moment she graduated from Sunday School (and garnered the ability to think for herself) she had shaken off much of what she had taught. Notions of a creator god, pearly gates and a world of damnation had felt like distant memories. Memories that occasionally resurfaced whenever she visited her mother, but memories nonetheless.
Of course, with no faith, there was no afterlife.
It wasn't something she agonized over. She always imagined it to be like riding on a long, winding train. A trip that for some, spanned decades. For others, they wouldn't ever get off the boarding station. Eventually, one day, just like everybody else, she would get off.
The thing about trains, though, is that they did not take detours. For the first and last time she would see light, she would be holding the same ticket, and getting off at the same stop. That and taxes were the only true constants in life.
Or, at least, that's what she had thought.
In a truly unthinkable set of circumstances, Ragatha's train had somehow performed multi track drifting, dismounted cleanly and suddenly found itself on an entirely new set of rails that, incredibly, stretched out into infinity.
A different kind of trip altogether, and one that had almost immediately taken her through a dark tunnel. Occasionally, the track had taken her back into the light. Just long enough to where she could find the hope she had misplaced in the darkness. But, as always, the train would take her back into the gloom that threatened to completely consume her more and more as the years passed.
Then, she met someone.
A girl who cared.
After the darkest moments of her digital life, she found the track taking her back into the light. Higher and higher, the rails brought her up and past the clouds where, over them, she could finally see just how far the train would take her. The immeasurable distance to the destination should have terrified her. But, with Pomni at her side, she once again found the joy in the journey.
And then in a twist she wouldn't have seen coming in a million years, the track vanished entirely and her train rocketed straight upwards and out of the stratosphere.
Immeasurable power rested within her felt fingertips, akin to the creator god she had been taught about in a bygone era. The feeling was both gut wrenchingly horrifying and strangely exhilarating.
Tapping into it had been easier said that done. She literally didn't have the mind for it, as Kinger had informed her. Caine's control over the Circus was absolute, in no small part due to him having created it himself. More importantly, it was the very thing he had been designed for. In his domain, that ability to create had came just as naturally as she herself would breathe. Morphing his body, conjuring props and bending the reality around him were done with out any real thought, even if the purpose was as simple as selling a joke.
The Ringmaster had been working in an entirely different mode of existence for decades. Ragatha, meanwhile, had been dropped into his workshop with no directions nor any clue on how to work his tools.
She had quickly realized that everything Caine had spent his time designing had been done with an incredible level of craftsmanship and care. The AI had built an entire circus from scratch, while she herself couldn't even spawn a sphere that didn't look freshly irradiated. There was this disconnect in her mind that took true effort to try and bridge.
Kinger had told her that with every 'act' from her, she was technically writing a new set of code to make her will reality. He had postulated that her human mind was coping with this alien feeling by passing it through a filter she understood, that being the concept of Creation.
The implications of that made her head spin, so she tried not to think about what she was doing too much.
Early on, her mind managed to make enough sense of the power at her disposal in a way that had made sense to her. If she closed her eyes, relaxed and let that latent energy take her, she could 'astral project' herself into a much larger, intangible form. It was a clumsy mode of operation, but it had been enough to repair a rotting Circus at the time when it most mattered. Now, though, expectations had fallen upon her to improve their situation.
No one had come out and said it, but it had been implied. Ragatha was sure of it.
With the responsibility of a world on her shoulders, and the drive to care for her girlfriend and friends, Ragatha had made it her new mission to get a better control over her divine nature.
Thankfully, two mentors had stepped up for her. An MIT graduate eager to guide her along the right path, and a fallen god projecting his vision onto her.
Thanks to their advice, she managed to a handle on the simpler actions within a week. To poof someone as easy as picturing the location she wanted them to be at and willing it to be so, usually with a flap of her hand. The flapping of her hand was technically unnecessary, but Caine had told her having some sort of motion to go along with writing new lines of code on the fly helped keep him on track.
Spawning simple objects too, became a breeze. If she could picture it in her mind, she could spawn it in front of her with no fanfare. Changing the Circus from day to night and back was just a wave of her hands, and the stars and the moon would follow. She could move mountains, if she wanted to. All it would take is the want or need, and she could warp the green hills with a rise of her hands.
The more complicated gestures she was still in the process of figuring out. How Caine put them on a new adventure nearly every day was lost to her. Simply making a cottage had been weeks of effort, of molding simple shapes into more complex ones, designing new assets and shifting old ones into things that fit her vision. Caine would do all that times a thousand in the span of, what, a day?
Yet, despite feeling more in control of them every, she still didn't have a full grasp on her powers, nor the breadth of them. Sometimes, the divinity resting somewhere within her stuffing would occasionally bleed out in the strangest of ways.
One such example could be found within the first week of the new normal. She and her girlfriend had been taking it easy together in the lounge. She didn't remember how long exactly they had been there, but long enough for Pomni's head to have fallen into her lap, and to have fallen asleep. She herself had been drifting off, the theater of her mind being occupied by the object of her affections.
Specifically, she had been thinking about how dashing Pomni had looked during the murder mystery adventure. The cut of her button-up shirt, and the way the slacks had fit around her legs. That trench coat, and how she smelled of smoke that day. It was a strangely alluring, intoxicating look she couldn't help but fantasize about.
Then, she appeared.
But not before the music.
A soft, slow saxophone eased the piano in. Then, together they worked to set the scene. A soft cloud of smoke rolled in, obscuring Ragatha's vison of the circus to just the lounge itself. A shadow formed in the smoke, distant at first, until the tip of a polished shoe broke through. The rest of a suit followed, until a familiar face regarded her coolly under the brim of a wide hat.
The detective flipped her bangs out of her face, quietly bringing a lit cigarette to her mouth.
She had her trench coat slung over her shoulder, and her tie loosened around her neck. The hat partially obscured the woman's eyes until they were gentle pinpricks of light in a deep shadow. The detective took her cigarette into her free hand, letting a plume of smoke billow out of her lips and join the wall of it behind her.
Her voice, like tinted glass, broke through the heavy silence like a nuclear-powered Icebreaker. "There she was." She said, a slow smirk spreading across her gloomy features. "Sat on the end of a piece of kitschy, patchworked upholstery. It was beneath her, in every sense of the word. A gal like that should've been at a bar, sipping the finest cosmopolitans money could buy."
Ragatha slowly put her face into her hands.
Between her digits, she spied the girl taking another long drag of her smoke. "That hair. As red as the blood I've become so acquainted with. They say you shouldn't mix work and love. But, with a girl like this, I was ready to break every golden rule." The detective flicked the butt of her cigarette to the ground.
"What is going on?" The same voice, just lighter and coming from her lap. Ragatha looked down to see Pomni staring at her with wide eyes.
Ragatha spluttered. "I-"
"The frog-like creature in the firebrand's lap had started flapping its lips." The detective cut her off, tossing aside her trench coat. "I didn't know whether I wanted to become deaf, blind or both."
"Ragatha." Pomni had her hands over face. "Can you please unmake her?" She asked quietly.
The doll bit her lip, looking up from Pomni to see the detective lighting a second cigarette. "Pom, you know I can't do that." She mumbled, wringing her hands together.
Her girlfriend pinched the space between her eyes. "Then, can you at least get her out of here?"
Guiltily, Ragatha raised her hand.
The detective stared back, pulling the lit cigarette out of her mouth. "Call it a detective's intuition, but I had suddenly felt unwelcome in front of-" She vanished, leaving her still smoking cigarette on the floor where her feet had been. After a moment, the backdrop of smoke and music followed.
"So..." Pomni started, sitting up and putting her arm around the back of the couch. "You fantasize about 'Detective Pomni' often?" She asked with a grin.
Ragatha buried her gently steaming face in her hands and let out a groan.
After that, the detective had been relegated to roaming the fairgrounds, and Pomni had asked Ragatha to make her a few sets of button ups and slacks. There simply couldn't have been a better catalyst to learn to create clothing.
When she wasn't focused on it, her divinity would slip between her seams in the strangest ways, it seemed. Lightbulbs would appear over her head and shatter into glass occasionally when she had an idea. Whenever she found herself in a particularly good mood, she would find herself floating a few inches off of the ground with no heavenly idea how to get down. She had even once accidentally poofed Kinger into Pomni's room in the middle of a story about her first week in the circus. All that had taken was an errant wave of a hand and the implication of his existence.
Fortunately, despite all of that, her friends didn't treat her any different. Besides Jax. He was suddenly being a lot, lot nicer to her and she didn't have to think hard about why. It was not a change she minded.
The feeling of almost normalcy she felt had been dumpstered the moment she started implementing the NPCs into the Circus.
To put it simply, a lot of them had a... complicated relationship with the concept of god.
One such case was the ruler of Candy Canyon Kingdom, Princess Loolilalu. After the debriefing, a process she and Kinger had devised after The Gloink Queen incident, the royalty had immediately sworn fealty towards Ragatha, pledging herself and her subjects to her cause. When she explained that there wasn't really a 'cause', Lou pivoted, cheerily informing her that she would use her forces to slay any threat to God or her allies.
Ragatha laid awake for a long time the following night.
The next set of NPCs she wanted to reintroduce into the Circus were the 'doppelgangers', as coined by her girlfriend, and they all had differing reactions to being pulled from the databank and brought before her.
Coach Dictatorer, Bazooble and Evil Orbsman had taken the news with varying degrees of indifference. They, mostly, expressed satisfaction at not being stuck in a permanent stasis and were happy just to get to do whatever they wanted. She brought the unusual reaction up to Caine, who had told her that these specific NPCs used a different set of code and were meshed with the mind files of the players.
Meanwhile, Pomni's doppelganger had been well and truly overjoyed at the prospect. She started rattling off ideas for the 'new Circus', had openly flirted with her and strangely enough, expressed a strong desire to have a toilet installed somewhere. Ragatha's girlfriend had stepped out of the room midway through the debriefing, and she had nipped that flirting thing in the bud in her absence. She did, however, promise to give her a toilet.
Her own doppelganger had been spawned in with a wide smile, and a disposition almost as eager as the previous NPC's. The smile had faded over the course of the debriefing and, at the end of it, she quietly asked Ragatha to 'unmake' her. Ragatha didn't, and she didn't see much of her after that. Pomni's doppelganger assured later her that she was doing fine, just that she was 'going through it right now'.
Evil Jax she had saved for last. After bringing him in, she lead with an apology about murdering him three and a half weeks prior. He more or less forgave her immediately, even going so far as to tell her he 'probably would have done the same in her shoes'. Ragatha didn't feel like unpacking that statement, so she cut him loose fairly quickly.
Besides that curious bunch, most of Caine's sapient creations treated her like a God, even when they didn't have the language to do so. The Gloinks parted like the red seas whenever she would walk through a gaggle of them, and the 'Angel' kneeled at her presence.
It all left her with a gross feeling in the pit of her stomach. A feeling that would slowly subside when she spent her nights with her girlfriend at her side.
Pomni treated her exactly the same. So much so, that Ragatha could tell some of it was put upon. Not in a way where her girlfriend genuinely thought of her as different, but more in a sense that she could tell Pomni was biting her tongue every so often.
One of things Ragatha loved about Pomni was her mind. The girl was so deeply curious about just about anything. The moment Ragatha or, just about anyone, brought up a problem or an interesting concept to her, Pomni would drop everything and leap upon it. She wanted to know the ins and outs of everything, and it was through that lens and the rapport they shared that Ragatha had formed so many of the ideas of how she could improve the quality of life in the Circus.
So, it was because of that, Ragatha found it odd that it took Pomni an entire week to ask her a question only she could answer.
A day or so after the 'detective' incident, they were sharing Ragatha's four poster bed. She had her face over her hands, quietly catching her breath after a session of their version of kissing. The older woman felt a shifting of weight to her right, and she looked over to see Pomni suddenly wearing a very serious expression.
Out of habit, an apology formed on the tip of her tongue.
Pomni put her hand up. "Ragatha." She said slowly, folding her legs under her weight. "Uh, this is going to sound weird, but--" She trailed off, rubbing her arm. Pomni only continued after Ragatha sat up as well, giving her a gentle nod of reassurance and just a little bit of anxiety.
She plucked at her rubbery skin. "What am I made of?"
Ragatha blinked. "Sorry?"
"Well, like-" the Jester pulled off her shirt, exposing the expanse of pale skin underneath. "It's not, like, human meat, right? It's way too rubbery. I'm just asking if there's a way for you to..." She trailed off, rolling her wrist. "Check my model, I guess?"
The doll averted her eyes, feeling a warmth spread across her face. "Pom... You're shirtless." She said quietly, toying with her hands in her lap.
"Oh no." Pomni replied flatly. "You'll see my huge tits. Whatever will I do?"
Ragatha glanced back to see Pomni cupping under her completely flat, nipple less chest and waggling her eyebrows. The older woman snorted, bringing her hands over her face. "Oh my god, hon." She giggled, waving her hand at her girlfriend.
"So-" She started, after her giggles had subsided. "You want me to check your model, huh?" Ragatha asked playfully.
Pomni stuck her tongue out. "I don't know, like, the texture, I guess. The material? Is that something you can do?"
The doll tilted her head. "I... think so? I'm going to have to touch you to do it, though."
The younger woman gasped, bringing her hands over her chest. "You perv."
"Har har." Ragatha rolled her eye.
The doll closed the distance, sitting close enough next to her girlfriend to bump shoulders with her. She raised her hand and brought it close to the younger woman's chest. Her fingers stopped just an inch or so from the smooth section of skin. A realization had halted her movement.
This would be the first time she had gone to second base with Pomni. In fact, it was the first time she had touched anywhere below the neck with anyone, ever. It made her freeze up, in spite of how hot the room felt all of a sudden.
"Ragatha?" Pomni asked, giving her an inquisitive look. "If you don't want to, we don't have to."
Ragatha shook her head. "No, no! It's fine, I just... this is the first time I've touched another girl's..." She trailed off, her mouth twisting into a nervous grin.
Pomni stared down at herself for a moment, than back up to Ragatha with a barely concealed smirk on her face. "There's literally nothing there."
"I see that!" Ragatha exclaimed behind an exasperated smile. "I don't know, it feels... intimate."
"Your felt was in my mouth three minutes ago." Pomni said, her voice going even flatter than her chest.
Ragatha stifled the giggles that threatened to burble out of her. Pomni was right, as usual. There was nothing there and she was being silly. "Okay, okay. Here I go." Pomni was thankfully silent as she finally brought the flat of her hand against her chest.
Like she had guessed, it felt more or less like warm rubber. It wasn't quite like skin, not like she remembered it. It was too stretchy, and too thin in places. But, compared to her own make up, she loved it. More than anything, it felt nice under her hands. Oh, wait, wasn't she supposed to be doing something here? "Hm..." Ragatha mumbled to herself, trying to access the code that made up her girlfriend. It was fleeting, but in the center of her mind's eye, she could see it.
C:\ProgramFiles\projectCAINE\Circus\CircusApps\players\Pomni\pomnimodel
Ragatha focused, seeing a list slide past her eyelid.
Pomni_Body_diffuse.obj
Pomni_Body_roughness.obj
Pomni_Body_specular.obj
Pomni_Body_opacity.obj
Pomni_Body_rubber_texture.obj
"Ah!" Ragatha cheered, opening her eyes. "Rubber, apparentl-" The words caught in her throat when she saw Pomni's expression.
A shade of red dominated the poor girl's face, and a row of teeth had sunken into her bottom lip.
"Pomni?" Ragatha asked, tilting her head.
Her girlfriend licked her lips, glancing at the door. "There is a..." She trailed off, tilting her head. Slowly, she looked off to the side. "Simulated feeling, there." She said quietly, her eyes now going down towards Ragatha's hand. The very same hand splayed out on her chest.
"Oh." The doll replied as intelligently as ever. She went to pull her arm back, but a hand wrapped itself around her wrist.
She looked up to see Pomni giving her an intense expression. "I didn't tell you to stop."
High up above the clouds, a train untethered by reality nearly combusted.