Chapter Text
Pomni was staring at something that did not medically qualify as a sandwich.
“It’s… fine right? It’s probably fine?” she asked, and she prodded one gloved finger against the thing on her plate. Layers of sandwich bristled at her touch, then tumbled over each other in a vaguely non-Euclidean manner.
Pomni retracted her hand. “Bubble made it. And we’re not on an adventure. So… it’s fine, right? It’s still a sandwich.”
“I’m not sure I would trust Bubble with… anything,” Ragatha answered, and then as if allergic to the defeatism of her own words, she hastily interjected, “which doesn’t mean it’s NOT fine. Maybe it’s a sandwich!”
“Do the sandwiches here normally do this, though?” Pomni was staring. The layers of tomato and cheese and bread rejoined the natural plane of physics, but with perhaps too much gusto. They were glowing with the same fervor as glass going molten in a kiln.
“No,” Zooble answered.
“Is there a chance it’ll stop…?”
“Why do we want it to stop? I think Pomni should eat it. I wanna see what it does to her.”
“Aaaaaaand ignoring Jax,” Zooble continued. “Maybe Bubble’s sandwiches just do this now. But also Bubble does rotate the menu, so we might get something else soon. I guess you haven’t been here long enough to see it rotate.”
“…The sandwiches are the only food I like here,” Pomni muttered, and she lifted her sandwich, which promptly rolled itself burrito-like and sluiced out of her hands much the way a water-wiggler toy would. “Oh…”
Pomni decided now was as good a time as any to give up as she watched it splat to the floor.
“Cheer up,” Zooble added, “at least it’s not a peacock or peahen—and definitely not a pea-brain.”
Confusion washed through Pomni’s body with almost enough momentum to distract her from her sandwich. The off-kilter feeling lessened when she looked up and caught sight of Ragatha giggling. Gangle sputtered over half-formed words.
“Come on, come on I got one word wrong!” Gangle insisted.
“Yeah, and I got a fun fake curse word for a while before Caine fixed the filters.”
Pomni’s shoulders eased. She let out a stiff laugh. A joke. An inside joke. The Circus-mates had a lot of them. Maybe you had to have a lot of inside jokes when you were trapped with the same half-dozen people for years on end. The thought sat like a rock in Pomni’s stomach.
And maybe the sensation of having a rock in her stomach instead of her not-sandwich showed on her face, because Ragatha glanced her way, and alarm blossomed bright on Ragatha’s face. “Oh. Oh! Pomni doesn’t know the joke! It happened before she got here! I’ll explain so you’re not left out.”
“I’m fine, really—”
“Caine had us in this restaurant adventure—well, part of it was a restaurant. It was really a much bigger adventure, with a lot of backstory… and NPCs. SO many NPCs. Never seen that many. So, really, I’m omitting a lot—"
“It’s fine—”
“—Caine ordered us to hunt down ingredients—I mentioned there was a restaurant? Ingredients for the restaurant. And while we were bird-hunting, Gangle said ‘Is that a pea-brain—' –well it didn’t start with her saying that. Jax said something first. That was important for what made it funny. What did Jax say?”
“I think it was ‘kill yourself’?” Jax intoned.
“It was not that.”
Zooble put a hand on Ragatha’s shoulder. “Pomni said it’s fine. It’s really not that funny if you explain the joke.”
Despite being made of stuffing, Ragatha deflated like she was full of air. “I guess you had to be there. Sorry Pomni…”
Pomni put her hands up in a show of inoffense. “It’s… really fine. I’m just not up to speed. I’ll get there.”
And Ragatha looked peaceful for perhaps the half-second she had between Pomni’s reassurance and Caine zapping into existence with all the verve and vigor of a tornado.
"THAT'S THE KIND OF ADVENTURE I’VE BEEN MISSING SINCE POMNI ARRIVED! A GET TO KNOW YOU ADVENTURE."
Ragatha blinked, her hair swept entirely to one side of her head by the explosive wake of Caine’s entrance beside her. A distance back, Jax said, "I kinda hoped we weren't doing those anymore."
“A what?”
And Pomni’s question was unfortunately answered in full by a single staccato snap of Caine’s fingers. A second of silence gave way to a rumbling that threaded through Pomni’s bones. She dodged away from the chair she sat in as it sunk into the floor, which claimed the table too, claimed her sandwich. Putty-like, the floor remade itself into a stage. Two podiums snapped into the air and dropped with a bang that rattled Pomni’s jaw. False pews rose behind false stage lights, overflowing with mannequin NPCs which poured into existence like chunky water.
Pomni backed up. A stage light blasted into her face, made the audience into dark streaks of shadows. She shielded her eyes, stumbled away, looked behind her, and drank in the giant sign draped like a ribbon across the whole red-curtained stage.
“…’Get To Know You Trivia’?” Pomni read, and repeated, as a question.
“GET TO KNOW YOU TRIVIA! IT’S A CUSTOM ADVENTURE I COOKED UP TO BREAK THE ICE WITH POMNI AND MAKE HER FEEL WELCOME.”
“That’s really—”
“NOT OPTIONAL,” Caine answered, flat and precise in a way that made Pomni question whether she actually shut up of her own volition.
“GET TO KNOW YOU TRIVIA!” Caine repeated into the gap of silence, as if rebooting. “I’LL BE BREAKING THE SIX OF YOU UP INTO TWO TEAMS. THE TEAM WHO CAN ANSWER MORE QUESTIONS CORRECTLY ABOUT THE MEMBERS OF THE OTHER TEAM WINS!”
Pomni shook her head out. She stepped aside from the blast radius of the stage lights.
“Is that a good idea though? I mean, I’m just gonna be deadweight for whatever team I’m on. I don’t know enough about everyone yet.”
“HA, same here,” Jax answered loud, singsong. “Can’t say I’ve ever bothered to learn anything about you all.”
“PERFECT! JAX AND POMNI, YOU’RE ON OPPOSITE TEAMS. NOW IT’S BALANCED!”
Caine moved in a way Pomni could only describe as ‘zooping’ as he snatched up both Pomni and Jax and slapped them into team-boxes beside opposite podiums. Pomni’s shriek came a second too late, because she was already firmly planted in the team-box by the time she knew to scream. The world spun around her for dragging seconds longer.
Jax seemed more used to being manhandled, because he wasn’t shaking off any vertigo when he whined “I was not trying to help!”
And Pomni heard a scoff from Ragatha, who’d reaffixed her hair and tugged just a bit anxiously at one yarn lock of it, perhaps anticipating she may be zooped next. “Jax, you don’t not know us.”
“Yeah, you just pretend you don’t,” Zooble added.
“THAT’S A GOOD POINT!” Caine agreed, pointer finger high to the sky. “THAT MEANS TEAM POMNI NEEDS MORE POWER.”
Ragatha braced. But instead Caine’s next zoop assault circled much further. His red-blur circuit burst through at least three-dozen pillow-fort pillows and scattered them like bomb-confetti as he dropped a sudden Kinger into the team-box beside Pomni.
“POMNI GETS KINGER.”
“Hello,” Kinger said.
All eyes fell silently on Kinger, who was being quite an excellent sport about not asking why he had been zooped from his pillow fort and dropped on a gameshow stage.
“How does that help?” Zooble asked.
“KINGER HAS BEEN HERE THE LONGEST. HE KNOWS THE MOST ABOUT EVERYONE!”
“I know what?” Kinger asked.
“It’s fine,” Pomni said. “I’m happy to team up with Kinger. I think we’ll make a great team, actually.”
“Oh,” Kinger answered, and then with a moment’s more thought he added. “That’s great. I think you’re an excellent teammate too. Are we doing something?”
“WE WILL BE! I’LL EXPLAIN THE RULES ONCE THE TEAMS ARE LOCKED IN. WE JUST NEED TO ASSIGN THE LAST MEMBER TO TEAM POMNI. I WAS THINKING—”
“I’ll do it,” Zooble said, zigzag hand half-raised in volunteer. For once today, the surprise in Pomni’s gut was the pleasant kind.
“Oh. You’re joining today’s adventure?”
“It’s trivia. I like trivia.” Zooble walked their own way to Pomni’s box, the first adventure participant so far to be saved from Caine’s zooping. “I used to do bar trivia with my friends before the Circus. Besides, I don’t think I can leave your team looking this pathetic.”
Pomni blushed with a tinge of embarrassment, laughing breathily as she glanced between herself and Kinger. “Yeah we’re uh… a stacked roster. Sorry. In advance. For dragging the team down.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Zooble added, taking one of the three seats in the team-box that Pomni only just noticed. “Yeah, you don’t know a lot about us. But that also means Team Jax won’t be able to answer a lot of questions about you.”
Zooble’s gaze trailed up to the opposite box, and Pomni followed. Jax caught their eye, stuck his tongue out, and Ragatha and Gangle cautiously approached his box.
“ALRIGHT WITH THAT SORTED, I WILL NOW EXPLAIN THE RULES!” Caine snapped again, and a projection materialized above center-stage. He eschewed mannequin stand-ins this time for small animated visuals of a cutesy Pomni sprite and an equally cutesy Jax sprite. It made Pomni giggle just a little, and Jax did not echo her opinion given the way he crossed his arms and ignored his sprite.
“TWO CONTESTANTS WILL APPROACH THE PODIUM AT A TIME. THERE WILL BE ONE TRIVIA QUESTION EVERY ROUND, ALTERNATINGLY CHOSEN BY THE PODIUM REPRESENTATIVE OF EACH TEAM. IN THIS EXAMPLE,” Caine motioned to the sprites. A little thinking bubble appeared above Sprite-Pomni, “POMNI GETS TO CHOOSE THE QUESTION FOR THE ROUND.” Sprite-Pomni nodded, and raised one index finger, and a speech bubble with the question “What is your favorite ice cream flavor?” floated above her yapping mouth.
“POMNI CHOSE ICE CREAM FLAVOR! EACH CONTESTANT WILL BE ASKED WHAT IS THE OTHER CONTESTANT’S FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR! SINCE POMNI CHOSE THE QUESTION, JAX WILL GET THE QUESTION FIRST.”
“Is there like a summary of this maybe? Like a SparkNotes version?” Jax asked, and Ragatha shushed him.
A small Caine sprite popped up at the center, belting out a speech bubble that read “JAX, WHAT IS POMNI’S FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?” The Jax sprite surfaced his own thinking bubble, gloved hand held to chin in contemplation. Sprite-Jax answered “Chocolate.”
“JAX HAS ANSWERED ‘CHOCOLATE.’ EITHER HIS ANSWER IS CORRECT,” Sprite-Pomni nodded, her own speech bubble reading ‘Yes, it’s chocolate.’ “MEANING JAX WINS A POINT AND GETS TO STAY ON THE PODIUM FOR THE NEXT ROUND. OR—”
Caine spun his hands. The sprites rewound. This time Sprite-Pomni shook her head and declared “No, it’s vanilla!’
“—JAX IS WRONG, AND POMNI CORRECTS HIM WITH THE RIGHT ANSWER, ENSURING WE ALL LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER! IN THIS CASE JAX GETS NO POINTS, AND HE WILL ROTATE OFF THE PODIUM AT THE END OF THE ROUND.”
Caine added an incorrect buzzer sound to the little sprite-scape, for effect.
“THEN THE SECOND HALF OF THE ROUND COMMENCES, WITH POMNI BEING ASKED WHAT JAX’S FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR IS.” The question flipped sprites now, with Caine inquiring Pomni to answer with Jax’s favorite ice cream flavor. “ALL THE SAME RULES APPLY TO POMNI. THE ROUND IS FINISHED WHEN BOTH PARTICIPANTS HAVE ANSWERED.”
“It’s nothing, right? Like this is kind of a nothing adventure?” Jax asked Ragatha beside him, arms folded loosely. Ragatha shushed him again.
“ANY QUESTIONS?!” Caine asked. Jax put a finger up, and he got through 90% of his inhale before Caine blew him away with a “GREAT THEN! LET’S GET STARTED!”
And despite all earlier attempts, Zooble did not escape Caine’s zooping. They were instantaneously popped onto the podium, blinking themself back to their bearings as they looked across to find equally-zooped Gangle braced against the opposing podium.
Caine produced a coin from thin air, flicked it high with a shiiiiing as it flipped nigh to the ceiling and crashed back down, gaining speed, building momentum, heat, light, just in time for Bubble to materialize and eat it. Caine smashed a fist down on Bubble as if popping a balloon, and Bubble very much did pop like a balloon. Caine studied the remains of Bubble. “TAILS! THAT MEANS TEAM B PICKS THE FIRST QUESTION.”
Caine slammed an arm out, index finger aggressively pinned to Gangle.
“GANGLE, THAT’S YOU. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE FIRST QUESTION.”
“O-oh. Okay. Like uh, anything?”
“CHOOSETHEFIRSTQUESTION.”
“Alright! Uh—uh—my question is ‘What pets do you have?’”
Caine’s mouth opened wide, emitting a button-buzzing sound which Pomni could only interpret as a question locked-in signal. Caine bounced up immediately and sang out, “ZOOBLE GETS TO FIELD THE QUESTION FIRST. ZOOBLE, WHAT PETS DOES GANGLE HAVE?”
“Three cats,” Zooble crossed their arms, “and a turtle.”
“IS THAT CORRECT?”
“It is! I’m really glad you remembered Slappy the turtle.”
“I think Slappy the turtle kicks a$%.”
“CORRECT ANSWER FROM ZOOBLE! ZOOBLE RECEIVES A POINT AND GETS TO STAY ON THE PODIUM FOR THE NEXT ROUND.”
The Team A podium ticked from 0 to 1.
“NOW,” Caine inverted himself to face Gangle, partially inside-out. “THE QUESTION IS POSED TO GANGLE. GANGLE, WHAT PETS DOES ZOOBLE HAVE?”
“A bullmastiff!” Gangle declared, ribbon hands slapping happily at the podium. “A bullmastiff named Radar and he’s huge and dopey and he ate the Thanksgiving turkey one year.”
“ZOOBLE, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“Spot on,” Zooble answered. And despite Zooble’s lack of mouth, or even half their facial features, Pomni appreciated that she could tell that Zooble was smiling.
Caine popped confetti from his mouth with a noise-maker trill. The diode on Gangle’s podium flipped from 0 to 1.
“CORRECT ANSWER FROM GANGLE!”
Pomni relaxed into her seat, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. More than just her breath, it was a tension in every muscle she’d been holding. It felt safe to let that go, just for now, just for this adventure. This was trivia. Like actually trivia. And it was making for a really nice adventure.
“BOTH CONTESTANTS REMAIN ON THE PODIUM FOR ROUND 2! THIS TIME, ZOOBLE PICKS THE QUESTION. WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION ZOOBLE?”
“I’ll go with ‘What’s your favorite color?’”
Caine made the same buzzer lock-in noise.
“QUESTION GOES TO GANGLE. GANGLE, WHAT IS ZOOBLE’S FAVORITE COLOR?”
“Oh… Oh uh…” The direction of Gangle’s mask eyes flitted about, finding corners of the room, finding Zooble. “I guess I never asked you what your favorite color is. Is it… Is it purple?”
“ZOOBLE, ANSWER.”
“It’s yellow, actually.”
“Wait, really? Me t—! oh. Oh no,” Gangle muttered. Caine’s incorrect buzzer sounded out roaringly loud. “I should not have said that.”
“NO POINTS TO GANGLE, AND SHE WILL LEAVE THE PODIUM AFTER THIS ROUND. ZOOBLE, THE QUESTION IS WHAT IS GANGLE’S FAVORITE COLOR?”
“It’s yellow. And don’t worry Gangle, I knew that even without you blabbing it just now.”
“GANGLE IS THIS CORRECT?”
Gangle nodded effusively. “I love yellow. It’s bright and happy, and it makes me think of sunshine.”
“ZOOBLE DEFENDS THE PODIUM FOR ANOTHER ROUND! WHAT A STUNNING PERFORMANCE FOLKS. GANGLE, YOU MUST EXIT THE PODIUM.”
“Maybe we can do an art project sometime? Something all yellow?” Gangle inquired over her shoulder as she left the podium.
“I’d like that,” Zooble answered.
Ragatha stepped up in Gangle’s stead, and she did it a bit hastily, perhaps fearing Caine would force-zoop her to the podium if she were not already there.
“I like blue… if anyone wanted to know,” Ragatha said, bashfully, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear as she positioned herself at the podium.
“Don’t give up information about yourself,” Jax said, hand cupped to his mouth. “You’re gonna lose us points.”
“I mean—” Ragatha bristled, “I don’t think anyone else is gonna choose the question ‘What’s your favorite color’ again.”
“RAGATHA. IS YOUR QUESTION WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?”
“No! NO! NO NO,” Ragatha corrected in a panic, hands waving. “My question is uh. Uh.. Uh favorite movie! What’s your favorite movie!”
Caine made the buzzer noise again, spun on Zooble.
“ZOOBLE, WHAT IS RAGATHA’S FAVORITE MOVIE?”
“Hmmm…” Zooble set a tinker arm to their chin, squinting, as if studying Ragatha might reveal the answer. “You do seem like the Disney type. I’ll go with Little Mermaid.”
“RAGATHA, IS ZOOBLE CORRECT?”
“Ah, no. Well, yes, partially, you’re right, I do like Disney. Is it that obvious? Hopefully that’s not a bad thing. I really like the films. I know the messages can be a little dated and problematic but—”
“RAGATHA, WHAT’S THE CORRECT ANSWER?”
“Mulan! I think. Yeah. Mulan, is the right answer.”
The incorrect buzzer droned loud over Zooble. Zooble shrugged. “I got close.”
“NO POINTS TO ZOOBLE! THEY WILL EXIT THE PODIUM AT THE END OF THE ROUND. RAGATHA, WHAT IS ZOOBLE’S FAVORITE MOVIE?”
“Their favorite movie… Oh I should have asked a different question. Zooble has seen a lot of movies.”
“I have.”
“How about. How about uh…. Citizen Kane? That’s artsy.”
“ME?”
“No,” Ragatha course-corrected. “It’s a movie. Kane with a K.”
“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPELL MY NAME.”
“It’s not correct,” Zooble interjected. “Double Indemnity is my favorite.”
The incorrect buzzer noise sounded.
“OHHH TOO BAD! 0 POINTS THIS ROUND AND EVERYONE SHUFFLES OFF THE PODIUM. PLEASE CONGRATULATE ZOOBLE ON THEIR THREE-ROUND STREAK!”
Kinger clapped. Pomni watched him, smiling, and gave in to light theater applause. Ragatha was too ruffled to notice. Gangle gave it her ribbon-all. Jax deliberately did not clap.
“KINGER, JAX, YOU’RE UP.”
Zooble retook their seat beside Pomni, and Pomni gave a thumbs up. “That was awesome,” Pomni said. She earned a shrug and a chuckle from Zooble.
“I know too much about Gangle,” Zooble admitted, which was not a bad thing in Pomni’s book.
Pomni’s attention snapped back to Kinger at the solid wooden THUNK picked up by his microphone. He’d tripped, failing to notice the step-up, and now lay in a human-sized-chess-piece-pile on the floor. Jax leaned irreverently against his own podium.
“Is he dead? Do I win by default?”
Kinger picked himself back up and hobbled the rest of the way properly to his podium.
“KINGER IS ALIVE! WHICH IS GREAT BECAUSE IT’S KINGER’S TURN TO PICK THE QUESTION.”
“Oh... a trivia question… Well Jax is my opponent, and he’s smart, so I can’t make it too easy.” Kinger fell quiet, staring off distantly. He stared long enough that Pomni questioned whether Kinger had disconnected entirely from the adventure, and unfortunately Caine was willing to match him in patience. Silence was thick in the time it took Kinger to come back online.
Then Kinger said, “I got it. My question is ‘What is your name?’”
“GREAT QUESTION. JAX GETS TO GO FIRST. JAX, WHAT IS KINGER’S NAME?”
Jax stared with such irritated blankness Pomni started to wonder if he might throw the question out of spite.
“It’s Kinger,” Jax said without even a hint of modulation.
“KINGER, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“Why, I believe it is!”
“POINT TO JAX!” Caine’s confetti went off. Jax’s digital counter ticked up to 2. Jax stared distantly, teeth eternally gritted, looking like this was an insult he hadn’t quite figured out how to call out.
“JAX GETS TO REMAIN ON THE PODIUM NEXT ROUND. NOW, KINGER, WHAT IS JAX’S NAME?”
This was also met with a pause much too long. But unlike Jax’s pause, Kinger seemed to actually be thinking.
“It’s too obvious to be a trick question so… I think the answer is Jax.”
“JAX, IS THAT CORRECT.”
“Yes,” Jax answered, unhappy to be speaking.
The same confetti went off for Kinger.
“POINT FOR KINGER!”
Delight sparked in Kinger’s eyes as his podium counter ticked up to 3.
“Oh, I didn’t think I’d be scoring points! I’m usually not good at trivia.”
“You picked the question,” Jax said.
“AND SPEAKING OF PICKING QUESTIONS, WE’RE ONTO THE NEXT ROUND! BOTH OUR PODIUM-DEFENDERS REMAIN AND JAX PICKS THE QUESTION.”
And finally Jax smiled. He leaned back on his heels and set his elbows over his head, posture loosening, easy-going, and Zooble let out a bothered noise beside Pomni. That made sense, Pomni supposed. The attitude-flip usually meant Jax was about to… cause… something.
“Ah gee, any old question in the world and it’s up to me? Well I wanna play nice and fair so I’ll go with the most classic ice breaker out there. My question is ‘If you were a chess piece, what piece would you be?’”
“A PERSONALITY QUIZ QUESTION. I LOVE IT.”
“That is not a fair question,” Zooble muttered, but chose to keep their voice low, perhaps to avoid giving Jax any validation.
“NOW THEN, KINGER IS UP FIRST FOR THE QUESTION. KINGER, IF JAX WERE A CHESS PIECE, WHAT PIECE WOULD HE BE?”
“A chess piece… Now that’s a silly thing to consider. If Jax were a chess piece… well that would make two chess pieces in the Circus, wouldn’t it? Two chess pieces…”
Kinger went offline for a long time. Jax was losing his joy in increments like water leaking from a cracked teapot.
“KINGER. ANSWER THE QUESTION. IF JAX WERE A CHESS PIECE, WHAT PIECE WOULD HE BE?”
“Oh! A question! What chess piece…? I think… perhaps… Jax could be the queen chess piece.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“JAX! IS KINGER’S ANSWER CORRECT?”
“No,” Jax answered flat, then he spread his easy smile back over his face, and he leaned his arms across his podium a bit like a cat stretching. “I am clearly far more of a bishop.”
The incorrect buzzer sounded, and Caine snapped his aggressively-pointed finger to Kinger. “NO POINTS FOR KINGER. KINGER WILL LEAVE THE PODIUM AT THE END OF THIS ROUND.”
“Oh... well… I’m glad you had me on your gameshow. I really had a great time here.”
“QUESTION TO JAX NOW. JAX, IF KINGER WERE A CHESS PIECE, WHAT PIECE WOULD HE BE?”
“Oh boy oh golly gee, a real head-scratcher, that one.” Jax sucked air performatively through his teeth. “This is a left-field guess on my part but I think I gotta go with the king chess piece.”
“KINGER, IS THAT CORRECT?”
And Kinger fell back into silence while he processed the answer. “Me… a king chess piece… It’s presumptuous maybe of my own importance, but somehow it feels exactly right. Jax is correct!”
Confetti erupted around Jax. He wore his easy smile as his podium score ticked up to 3, tying the game.
“IT’S TIME FOR POMNI TO ENTER THE GAME, AAAAAAAAAAAND SHE GETS TO CHOOSE THE QUESTION!”
Pomni offered a thumbs up to Kinger as she traded places with him hobbling down from the podium. He smiled at her with his eyes, and it did warm something in her in the moments she had before she took the podium and wondered how okay it was to look Jax in the eyes right now.
He was looking, of course. There was no tell of discomfort in his easy leaning and placid eyes and wide smile, and that all seemed so absurd to Pomni. Pomni could almost believe he’d forgotten their argument—the yelling, the screaming, the biting, her uncouth accusation that he caused Kaufmo to abstract, his complete insistence that he did not care about her.
There was no room to talk about it now. Just a trivia match between them.
“POMNI! QUESTION!”
Could trivia be an olive branch? Would he cooperate with her if she asked the question she had in mind?
“Y-yeah, yeah, um.” Pomni looked away from Jax. She locked in her choice. “My question is, ‘What is an animal you think is cool?’”
Jax snorted. Caine made the buzzer sound. “GREAT QUESTION. OVER TO JAX. JAX, WHAT IS AN ANIMAL POMNI THINKS IS COOL?”
Jax surfaced another snort, like he needed two for effect. He crossed his arms and shook his head. “A hamster, of all things. Can’t say I get it.”
Pomni’s chest felt light.
“POMNI, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“Yeah,” Pomni said with a nod. “Hamsters are cool. Or maybe I just owned the world’s coolest hamster when I was 12.”
“POINT TO JAX!” Confetti. A ticker from 3 to 4.
“No one has the coolest hamster,” Jax contested. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Maybe you just haven’t met the cool hamsters.”
Jax’s next snort didn’t seem calculated. Pomni smiled.
“FLIPPING THE SCRIPT TIME! POMNI, WHAT IS AN ANIMAL JAX THINKS IS COOL?”
“A wolf.”
“JAX, IS POMNI CORRECT?”
“See, now there’s an actually cool animal. My wolf could eat your hamster for breakfast.”
“I’d like to see your wolf try.”
“POINT TO POMNI!”
Confetti rained down with a noise-maker putter. Her podium ticked up to 4 in mirror of Jax’s. She watched him for searching moments, breath held, but he only smiled back, rolled his eyes, shook his head. This felt normal all over. She tapped her fingers on her podium. Happy thoughts tittered in her head like butterflies, all hopeful, all warm.
Jax had been having a bad day during the gun adventure, maybe. She’d pushed some boundary she didn’t realize was there, probably. It had been a rocky moment for them, but it hadn’t been the end.
“ANOTHER DUAL SET OF PODIUM DEFENDERS, WOWEEEE!” Caine hollered. “DOESN’T IT JUST BRING A TEAR TO YOUR TEETH SEEING CIRCUS MATES BEING THE BEST OF FRIENDS!!”
Something shifted.
“JAX, QUESTION.”
Pomni felt the shift more than she saw it, but she did see it. There was a fraction of a moment Jax’s attention darted to Caine. And when the fractional moment passed, the loose smile Jax offered her went just a bit rigid. His wide eyes were looking past her now. There was something new in his expression, and it was not rage, and it was not bitterness, and it was not even unpleasant.
It was something cold, suddenly. Like Pomni was no longer welcome in his eyes.
Pomni’s heart kicked up.
Jax pushed himself up until he was no longer leaning on the podium, taller and still unbreakably casual. His eyes roved, and he spoke through an unbreakably wide smile. “Oh you’re spot on Caine. I think the lot of us are cut out to be best fwiends fowever. But you know,” He twirled a hand in the air, “I can’t help but feel we’re going a little too easy on each other for best friends. I mean, favorite color, pets, c’monnnnnn that’s first date material! I’ve got some ideas to take the questions up a notch.”
Jax leaned across his podium, weight and momentum forward, fixed on Pomni. He gave her his entire smiling attention. Pomni had this notion suddenly, this bone-deep fear, that maybe she was the hamster, and Jax was the wolf.
“MY question for the round is: ‘Is your father alive?’”
Pomni’s heart skipped. Her body did not feel pain correctly, but her mind knew every jagged edge.
“Jax…” Pomni whispered, as unintentional as an exhale. “I thought that talk was private.”
And something, something flinched behind Jax’s blank eyes. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe Pomni imagined it.
Jax leaned all the way back, his eyes roving in directions that weren’t her. “What? Come onnnnnn. If you didn’t want to have that information weaponized against you in a game a trivia, you shouldn’t have told me!”
“Jax, this is too far,” Zooble cut in, and while Pomni already liked Zooble plenty, her fondness swelled at the tone of genuine anger in Zooble’s voice. “Pick another question.”
Jax let out a tch noise. His eyes roved everywhere but Zooble now. “Zooby, I think Pomni can speak for herself. I mean, if Pomni tells me to pick another question I will. It’s gonna be so hard to come up with another question, but luckily I have great ide—”
“It’s fine, actually,” Pomni answered, small. Jax finally met her eyes, his mouth all but absent from his face. The bounciness had vanished from his movements. “You made your choice.”
“H-hey, I didn’t… make… a ch—It was an idea! I’m an idea guy!” He threw his arms out, his agitation a bit infectious. “If you’ve got a better question for me to ask then tell me and I’ll switch! I’ll switch!”
Caine’s locked-in buzzer noise sounded. Jax stiffened.
“QUESTION TO POMNI. POMNI, IS JAX’S FATHER ALIVE?”
And Pomni could not speak immediately. She felt too full of jagged dripping wounds, ripped up too recently to remember how to think and talk. It wasn’t like she’d set out to tell him. He’d asked about her family first, back when he was still talking to her.
And alongside the jagged feeling was a second thought, something equal parts shameful and hopeful: Jax hadn’t said anything about his own family. He’d only listened to her talk. Pomni didn’t… actually… know anything about Jax’s father. She did not know if he was alive or not.
And if he wasn’t, was Jax trying to tell her?
Her guess did not change. It would be uncouth to guess a man might be dead. But Pomni did not actually care about what answer would win points right now.
“My guess is… yes, he’s alive.”
“JAX, IS THAT CORRECT?”
Jax held his arms in an X formation over his chest, and he imitated the incorrect buzzer noise: “EHR. Not correct.”
A cocktail of wet feelings swirled in Pomni’s chest. Sadness, pity, grief, embarrassment, for her own assumption, but was it wrong to admit some of this feeling was warmth? Jax had meant something by it. Jax was revealing something to her. Jax hadn’t—
“WHAT IS THE CORRECT ANSWER, JAX?”
“The correct answer is ‘We can’t know.’” Jax said, arms thrust outward. “We’ve been stuck here for years, so no one actually knows if our loved ones are dead or alive, right? Not like anyone’s popping in to tell us.” Jax crossed his right leg over his left, full weight supported on his left leg while his right toes brushed the ground. He leaned his elbow against the podium and dropped his chin on his waiting palm. “C’mon Pomni I thought you were smart. You shoulda realized ‘yes’ can’t be the right answer.”
Oh. That little wet hope inside her cratered into the black cavity that was most of her chest. And it must have shown in her eyes, because when she looked up at Jax, his flinch was unmistakable.
“That was a trick question and a d&^k move, Jax!” Zooble snarled from the team-box.
The incorrect buzzer sounded for real. Pomni barely registered it.
“NO POINTS TO POMNI! POMNI WILL EXIT THE PODIUM AT THE END OF THE ROUND.”
“I didn’t—” Jax fumbled. He straightened on the podium. His eyes bounced between Zooble and everyone else. “I mean—” Everyone but Pomni. “I meant it as a JOKE! A little gallows humor. We’re not gonna survive on Ragatha’s toxic-positivity alone.”
He tried this time to look at Pomni. He didn’t succeed.
“ONWARD! QUESTION TO JAX. JAX, IS POMNI’S FATHER ALIVE?”
And Jax froze entirely under Caine’s question. He ran his hand over his ears, grabbed and released the podium. Did it again. And again. His smile strained like the strings holding it up were wearing thin. His eyes went everywhere in the whole circus beside Pomni.
“Now wait a sec… That’s uh... CAINE, just a thought here, but I actually came up with a WAY more entertaining question, okay?” Jax leaned his elbow against his podium. “It’ll boost adventurability by 30%, I promise. The audience is clearly BORED of this question, so I think, why not let me switch it up, and—”
“NO CHANGING THE QUESTION ONCE IT’S BEEN LOCKED IN, JAX! YOU HAVE TO ANSWER.”
There was a tremor in Jax’s hand. He hid it by gripping the podium with enough force to strain his arm.
“I just… really think—I mean—who would even—” His eyes found Pomni. Again. Again. Again. “I just clearly don’t know the answer, so I’m gonna forfeit the round--”
“NOT ALLOWED.”
“You’re gonna bore the mannequins, Caine!” Jax slapped his arm out to the audience. His voice cracked.
“Answer the question, Jax,” Pomni said, and there was something a little wounded in the way he looked at her. “You already know he’s not alive.”
“JAX, IS POMNI’S FATHER ALIVE?”
“…No,” Jax said, and he said it so quietly it was nearly the same as a breath exhaled.
“POMNI, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“That’s correct.”
Confetti rained around Jax. He blinked, and hastily got to work batting the confetti off his shoulder.
“POINT TO JAX!”
5 now, emblazoned on his podium.
The strings on his smile cut just long enough to drift into a scowl. He painted it as frustration in getting the last of the confetti off his shoulders, aggressive swipes, agitated motions, darting eyes. Jax smoothed his hands over his ears and breathed. Inhale. Exhale. His smile restrung itself. His posture massaged itself loose from its locked rigidity. His scowl melted. Eyes softened. Easy, normal, casually, leaning on the podium again.
Pomni had stopped looking. She kept her eyes to the floor and watched only the drag of her shoes as she swapped spots with Zooble. Zooble’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Do you want me to kill him? We haven’t found a way to do it in the Circus yet, but I haven’t given up hope.”
The joke did loosen the gnarled tangle in Pomni’s chest. She laughed, and shook her head. “No need. But thank you.”
She seated herself beside Kinger. He looked at her, and her expression must have startled him.
“Hey, are you okay Pomni?” Kinger asked, one hand extended. “It’s okay to lose at trivia. I lost a round too.”
“I’m fine, Kinger,” Pomni wiped a little at her eyes. It felt easier to breathe now. There were good people in the Circus. She had friends here.
She glanced up out of the corner of her eyes to Jax. He was focused on Zooble, his normal expression back—the cold one, that was.
He’d tried to take the question back. That meant something, right? He felt something.
Not enough to apologize, though. Never enough to apologize. Was it childish of her, she wondered, to just want one single apology from him?
“AND THREE-TIME-PODIUM-DEFENDER ZOOBLE IS BACK ON THE STAGE! CAN THEY BREAK JAX’S STREAK AND RECLAIM THE TITLE OF LONGEST DEFENDER? QUESTION CHOICE GOES TO ZOOBLE!”
Zooble met Jax’s smile with a look designed to kill. “For my question, I’ll go with ‘What do you hate most about the Circus?’”
Caine sounded the locked-in buzzer.
“QUESTION TO JAX! JAX, WHAT DOES ZOOBLE HATE MOST ABOUT THE CIRCUS?”
Jax sucked air through his teeth. He gripped his hands on the podium and swayed back and forth against it, bouncy, animated, putting on a show of thinking. “I’m picking up some kind of hateful vibes from you, Zoob-zoob. I’m gonna guess the answer is me?”
“What an amazing guess,” Zooble answered, flat.
“POINT TO JAX!” Jax’s podium ticked up. 6. “ZOOBLE’S TURN. ZOOBLE, WHAT DOES JAX HATE MOST ABOUT THE CIRCUS?”
“He hates that he’s stuck with such a small audience of people to make miserable. It must be a downgrade from ruining the day of everyone he used to meet on the street.”
“JAX, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“Ahhhh, come on now,” Jax let out a chuckle just a bit stiff. He stuck his elbows in the air again, hands to his neck, tilting back. “The answer is clearly ‘the people here,’ but that’s the same as my audience, so let’s give the point to Zooble.”
“How generous,” Zooble answered, sarcasm dripping.
Confetti rained. Zooble’s podium ticked to 5. “POINT TO ZOOBLE! PODIUM DEFENDERS REMAIN FOR THE NEXT ROUND!” Caine’s accusing finger stuck to Jax’s chest. “PICK THE QUESTION.”
Jax batted off Caine’s index finger. He gave a strained laugh, another one, eyes bouncing like a gnat in a jar. “You KNOW… I’m starting to sense a little animosity on this stage, I think? We should really all lighten up! It’s a game!”
“Like you didn’t start it,” Zooble muttered.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Jax patted his hands against the air. “I’ll go with ‘What’s a past job you’ve held?’ That’s nice and friendly. We’re playing nice and friendly trivia.”
Caine’s locked-in noise buzzed.
“Wonder why you chose that one,” Zooble asked rhetorically. “It’s almost like I’ve mentioned my jobs multiple times.”
“Whaaaaaaaat?” Jax asked, still swaying against the podium. “That doesn’t sound right. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your jobs to me. Maybe I’m just forgetting. If someone pours me a stiff drink I might remember? Maybe you can tattoo it on me, so I don’t forget.”
Zooble glared. Jax did not.
“QUESTION TO ZOOBLE. ZOOBLE, WHAT IS A PAST JOB JAX HAS HELD?”
“I’m going with ‘none.’ You seem like the type who’s never held a job.”
“JAX, IS THAT CORRECT?”
“Nope. Not correct,” Jax answered, sing-song.
The incorrect buzzer blared.
“WHAT IS THE CORRECT ANSWER?”
“I mean... Zooble had so many to pick from!! I talk about my jobs constantly.” Jax started a counter with his fingers. “One-man opera production, president of Paraguay, owner of a meth lab operation. Don’t tell me you forgot about my meth lab operation?”
“Oh he’s lying. Caine, he’s JUST lying! This is not fair!”
“Come onnnn, who cares? It’s a game! Besides your team has Kinger, and it’s not like Kinger is gonna answer anything seriously.”
“Oh. Am I not being serious?” Kinger asked.
“Kinger is cooperating the best he can. You’re not. You’re lying, and that is not fair!”
“YOU’RE RIGHT! THAT ISN’T FAIR!” Caine chorused.
Caine snapped his fingers.
Jax stiffened.
Jax fell silent. The smile dripped off his face. He looked at his hands. He looked at Caine.
“What did you do?” Jax asked.
“I MADE IT SO YOU CAN’T LIE!”
Silence settled like a stiff blanket, and then finally Jax whispered “…What?”