Chapter Text
It made sense that like an old computer game, the world would lag as they made their escape from the Amazing Digital Circus. Gangle felt the world slow to molasses and begin to advance frames in ticks as the CPU ran overtime, phantom heat chasing their heels. Frantic running to the door pulling the two closest people with her, (tick) Pomni's grasp on the handle, her pinwheel eyes scanning their group before, (tick) the room beyond, a white void save for six figures – that had to be their human selves, right?! (tick) The world tilting as gravity changed for everyone, pulling them to their own bodies, Kinger and Ragatha falling furthest, but (tick) Zooble's plasticky hand sliding from her grasp a second too soon. (tick) Feeling the other hand started to slide out as she reached for Zooble's, (tick), now too far away to catch so wrapping her ribbon limb once, (tick) twice, (tick) thrice, (tick) and four times around the other's hand — refusing to lose anyone else and (tick) pulling them close as (tick). Impact into herself.
And then there was nothing.
---
Gangle would have liked to think her first moments back in her body would have been a slow, joyful realization of sensations. She daydreamt about it a lot. She would usually wake upon the floor, or maybe a chair, and see the particles filter in a sunbeam that gently warmed her face that she would touch in shock before laughing. And her laughter would startle her, which would cause her to laugh even louder until she was breathlessly wiping tears from joyful eyes under her glasses. (Her avatar's mask, though awful, always felt morosely appreciated on those dreaming days covering her sad, fragile self)
Instead, Gangle awoke to a sharp pain in her shoulder and wrist, a quiet, "Fuck! Sorry!" Under blaring fire alarms, heat and an awful smell that caused her to double over and cough. She felt herself be dragged under the arms further away from the noise and looked up to see... that that. Must be Zooble. For a moment, she forgot everything else, and Gangle drank in the view. Zooble's face was extremely asymmetrical but Gangle swore she had never seen anything so beautiful. Their mismatched eyes with the right one looking slightly larger from a drooping lower lid — ectropion, her mind supplied — and a huge bumpy port wine stain curved across the upper right side of their face, gently reaching to their exposed ear from a cool undercut, and light caught some piercings? She followed the nose piercings back up to those eyes, which Gangle noted with delight were heterochromatic like me! No, I mean she dreamt and drew herself with heterochromia when she was younger but her own eyes were a boring dark brown, those eyes were looking at Gangle with an emotion she didnt dare to couldn’t parse but knew her own eyes reflected.
It was... love. Love that Gangle felt. She knew it but never dared to put a name to how she felt about Zooble but now she felt it singing through her core. It was unfair, she thought, to finally feel her heart beat again only for it to go wildly out of sync as she felt a different heat rise to her face.
Her face! She covered her face and groaned, overwhelmed. There was simply too much going on. The sensations felt too much after a lifetime of Nothing but digital mimicry but there was a joy sparkling at love and understanding it finally and her face was so soft and warm and there an acrid smell – oh breathing was so weird, feeling her chest expand and contract but also someone just yelled about an extinguisher and those fire alarms were so annoying!? Someone — it must have been Zooble — pulled her closer and began to rub comfortingly at her injured shoulder, slightly too rough but grounding in a way that allowed Gangle to get her bearings. They talked quietly above as Gangle focused past her hands to see Zooble's arm and —oh! Those were such marvelous tattoos!
A wonderful, startled and sputtering laugh that shook them alerted that, ohh. She said that out-loud, didn't she? She couldn't help but start giggling too, tears starting to fall from her eyes from joy but also probably the smoke? It was starting to lessen at least — did someone open some windows?
It was true, though. Unthinkingly, she reached out and traced the crisp line work, following an angular fox and twisting vines to a sunflower and another flower... what were they called, oh! Paeonia lactiflora! Her blip of confusion over how she remembered the scientific name before the normal name was stopped by a sharp pain in her wrist.
"Hey, careful, did you injure it?" Zooble gently pulled her hand to check, noting how tenderly Gangle held her wrist despite the lack of visible injury. "Sorry, again about your shoulder, I should've been more careful. You and Kinger were still out when the fire started so we pulled you away."
Gangle looked over towards where Zooble had gestured, seeing a lanky older man with light starting-to-gray hair lying politely on his back with his hands folded over his chest, fiddling with something on his left hand. Without looking away from his intense staring match with the ceiling, he softly said, "I knew the kids could handle it."
"HEY!" Blessedly, the noisy alarm finally stopped and Gangle turned her head further to see who spoke. A shorter, younger-looking person threw his arms out and starting hitting himself in the chest, "Do we look like kids?"
"Well, you do- eep" Gangle slapped her hands over her mouth as everyone in the room turned to look at her. Was she still waking up? What was wrong with her filter right now? She felt her face warm further under her hands as several people snickered at Jax's (that had to be him, right?) flabbergasted noises. Someone said something quietly she couldn't hear that prompted another round of conversation and teasing that was lost to Gangle. She peeked up, to look at the three remaining figures. Jax honestly wasn't that short (maybe.. 170.16 centimeters?), it was just the fact he was unfortunately standing next to two much taller woman. Behind Jax the person covering her mouth laughing with one eye just slightly lazy — exotropia, her mind supplied – and the proper pose that had to Ragatha. Weird, her hair wasn’t the bright ginger she had assumed; it was a darker auburn than Jax's actual ginger hair? But. That meant the even taller woman in the hoodie and tiny ponytail was... huh.
"Did... did something go wrong with you three?" At the confused and shocked looks (and Jax's "Look who's talking"), Gangle started waving her hands, shocks of pain in her wrist, rushing to clarify, "I mean, it's not that you look bad, or wrong, but I would never say that anyway but it's just! I thought! Ragatha would have the red hair! And Jax and Pomni are, well I thought their heights would be swapped and! Kinger and Zooble look how I always thought, not that I really thought about Kinger as much but-!" She couldn't stop! Saying! Her thoughts!! She needed to stop! But it was good to express herself? But she really needed to stop stop why sto-
"Hey, calm down, Gangle, its okay." She looked up to see Ragatha — oh, wow she was pretty — to see Ragatha crouched down and started to say — actually now that she was closer, Gangle could see the slight scarring around Ragatha's eye that was expertly covered with make up, only ruined by sweat from the f- ffffffrick why did she stop herself from swearing she had missed whatever Ragatha had just said. Gangle stared in hopes that Ragatha would take pity and repeat herself.
Unfortunately, Jax stole the pity and cut in, leaning over close and leering, "Jeeze Zoobs, are you sure you didn't hit her head pulling her dead-weight away from the fire? She's slightly dumber than usual."
Any attempt at reprimanding Jax was cut off by shocked gasps as Gangle lunged and grabbed at Jax’s face. Normally, she would just think this but right now, she felt a mischievous smirk grace her face as she drawled, her eyes delighted half crescents as squished his cheeks, "OH Jaxy-waxy, you look sooooo cute!"
"H-huh?!" Jax's adorable, confused, face erupted with a blush.
Gangle was very much aware this was a grown man she was manhandling, but between his shorter stature, skinny limbs, Gangle felt a phantom pang of sympathy in her ribbons, her own weight hard fought, combined with somehow still squishy baby cheeks and mop of messy ginger hair, the slightest overbite, she didn't stop herself from cooing, "Ohh, you're like a pumpkin bunny~!"
"A punny," Kinger very helpfully supplied from his spot on the floor. Gangle cheered while Jax shouted.
"KINGER!"
"A bumpkin." Kinger very helpfully amended from his spot on the floor. Gangle whooped and spun Jax who groaned, causing everyone to laugh.
Gangle's head hurt and her heart felt strangely light. Her feelings towards Jax was a messy knot but it felt like she had a new perspective. She had to hold him somehow. Hate and love and joy and understanding folded in on each other, creating a confusing mess that made Gangle just act upon her first instinct: she wanted to mess with him.
(She kinda wanted to call him Onii-chan to fluster him but he was smaller and younger and she couldn't think of the younger sibling equivalent and she didn't have a Japanese language pack accessible right now, so she settled for swinging Jax around while the last of the smoke finished dispersing, the red light still beeping over the six humans freed at last.)
---
The group really should leave but somehow everyone had spread out and were taking stock of their possessions. Gangle missed that part of the conversation to decide that. Her head felt so open that somehow she kept missing things. It felt like it should be the other way around but she couldn't bring herself to care. It was like being alive for the first time, her breathing kept stopping cause she was so aware of it. The others mentioned a "manic episode" but she found more joy in scribbling on actual paper instead! Not drawing, just enjoying the tactile feel and noise of dragging a pencil back and forth and back and forth on the back of some spreadsheet that Kinger handed her.
It seemed everything everyone physically had on them when the headset was put on stayed with them, but items put to the side were missing. Pomni's backpack was gone, but she had her (dead) phone, earbuds and actual wallet with (little) money, cards and ID in her pockets. Which was more than the rest of the members could claim. Ragatha had nothing at first, lamenting the false pockets on her suit and missing necessary bag, before jumping and removing one of her heels to remove $40 dollars hidden under the sole. Gangle and Zooble had their (dead) phones, plus a broken magical girl keychain that had been on her bag before it had broke, necessitating its location in her pocket (At the very least, Gangle knew she had removed her art supplies from all her bags when she came to the building). Kinger, despite having been at work and not holding his important belongings on him, had a company ID pinned to his shirt, some pens, a folded up recipe for mushroom risotto and some chess pieces he stared at for a long time in his pockets. Jax had lock-picks, another (dead) phone with a cracked screen, and an apple that no one trusted.
No one was sure how long they had been in the circus exactly. Pomni said it was early 2017 when she entered, prompting Kinger and Ragatha to look rather pale. Despite that, no one seemed particularly worse for wear. It was strange: they aged but Ragatha still had her make-up and her hair up from at least nine years ago. But at the same time, Zooble pointed out that they had removed a few of their piercings for an interview the day they were trapped and now, somehow, some of the holes were fully healed. It was as if their bodies had been frozen in stasis but still aging. Gangle commented that it was like Ocarina of Time, when Link got sealed in the Sacred Realm for nine years. Everyone stared at her silently until Kinger broke it to ask if Nintendo was still around.
This was all to say the apple originally looked as fresh as the day Jax was trapped. By now, it was rather bruised from being thrown around before being forgotten on one of the desks.
The scribbling was fun but she wanted to draw something! Suddenly, Gangle’s hands froze. Huh? She tapped the pencil against the paper, as if she was deciding what to draw; instead, her mind raced trying to figure out was wrong. Something was wrong.
The thunk of the pencil she had been formerly holding hitting the floor several feet away startled Gangle. Had she accidentally flipped it out of her hands while fiddling with it? She didn’t feel like drawing now. So she rolled onto her back and played with her hands before noticing someone looking down at her, saying something she missed again. So she followed the gaze up and up and up to...
"Pomni, why are you so tall?" Gangle looked upside down at the former Jester.
“-Huh?” Pomni looked confused. Ah, she accidentally cut her off. Again. But she was curious! “Uh,” Pomni looked to the side to the others before focusing and responding. “I’ve always been this tall? I’m not sure why any of us looked the way we did in the Circus, it’s not like we had any control over it.”
Gangle responded before she could think it through, “Our avatars were based upon scans of our brains to perfectly encapsulate our own perceptions of ourselves to ease transition to the digital landscape. If your avatar was small and a jester, that probably corresponds to a real world cognition. Pomni, do you feel small, like people treat you like a joke?” Pomni’s shoulders hunched and she had an expression something akin to shock, which caused Gangle to nod knowingly before she froze. “Um.” Pomni was still staring at her with something in her eyes. Gangle rolled over to avoid looking at Pomni only to catch the eyes of Jax and Zooble staring as well. So she rolled over again the other way. Wow, the pencil she had thrown made some distance. “Sorry… about. That.”
The silence was broken by Jax wheezing and smacking the desk he had been sitting at. Gangle ignored that. The floor was really dusty actually. Ugh, she’d be rolling in it. She probably was as much a mess as she felt right now; Gangle’s head hurt. She heard Pomni move, and soon heard a creaking of knees as Pomni sat on the floor next to her, muttering about how she hadn’t missed that. “Hey, Gangle, it’s okay. I didn’t realize that was how our avatars worked. Is this why you were ribbons?” Gangle felt Pomni very lightly tap on the ribbon holding her ponytail back.
“.. I Like ribbons but I don’t think that was exactly why.” She felt the phantom pains of emptiness around her core again. She squeezed her hand again, comforted by the pleasant squish of fat. “The mask was pretty obvious. Plus, I did like doing tech work in high school.” The silence felt more comfortable now. “I got to design a giant mask for a production of Wizard of Oz one time. It was this huge three piece unwieldy thing that needed five people to hold up.”
She could hear Pomni’s smile as she prompted, “Oh?”
Gangle giggled, “It was so bad. I had no idea what I was doing. But I loved it so much I stole it from storage afterwards.” It took her multiple struggling trips but the drama teacher turned a blind eye to her escapades. The joy left with a shaky exhale, “It’s probably been thrown away by now… it might have been safer if I never took it.”
She could feel Pomni tentatively reaching to her but was doomed by the door opening with Ragatha and Kinger returning. Apparently they left at some point. Something was wrong with Ragatha, she could tell by how Kinger gently guided her with a hand on her shoulder to one of the office chairs. Pomni paused before getting up and moving towards Ragatha, leaving Gangle to mourn the loss. She waited a moment before deciding she was tired of being on the floor. She was so tired in general. Limbs stiff and movements unsure, she lumbered up and made her way towards Zooble (fortunately) and Jax (unfortunately). She rolled another chair towards them as Jax complained about Zooble stepping on his foot or something.
Gangle flopped down and observed the others. Jax and Zooble were arguing but there was little heat behind it. Performative more than anything. Ragatha was hunched over with a distraught look on her face, clutching at it with both hands. Kinger was still comforting her but had a resigned yet haunted glazed over expression. She couldn’t see Pomni’s face but she was talking softly to the two. What had she missed?
Gangle gently nudged Zooble and tilted her head at the scene before them. Zooble hesitated and Jax looked away, shoulders hunching up. After a moment, they sighed and mumbled, “She was looking for… someone. They didn’t find them..”
Gangle sat up suddenly, a phantom pain shooting up their wrist: “Zooble, Jax, Pomni, and Kinger and Ragatha just walked back into the room. Who was missing. Ragatha, Kinger, Pomni, Jax, and The Zooble. And Gangle was here too.” Confusion covered her face as she turned back to Zooble, “But everyone is here? No one is missing?”
“She was looking for Caine, Gangle.”
what
“What?”
“The original plan was to escape and bring Caine along on a usb stick or something, remember? But well…” They turned to look at the smoldering computer remains the others tried so desperately to put out. Gangle could see where parts of the melted casing had been pried off only to reveal the ruined, scorched old circuitry underneath. She felt sick seeing it. Right. Right, right, right. Her mind moved like sludge. She argued to find a way to save Caine, didn’t she? Even got in a fight with Zooble about it. Had begged Kinger to think of a way to save her friend before they left. But now…
Gangle caught Kinger’s eye with hope, and he looked away, ashamed. Was there no hope? Caine couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. He had been there with them just a short while ago. The buzzy fog in her brain felt worse than before. Jax let out a long sigh before getting up and leaving the room. She turned to Ragatha and Pomni. “Wh-” she gestured. She wasn’t sure what she was even asking.
Luckily, Ragatha seemed to understand. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “We were hoping that Caine might be a human somehow? His AI was so advanced, and Kinger brought up something about a... Mechanical Turkey?” Kinger perked up to say something but Pomni just shook her head at him. Ragatha slowly opened her eyes, staring upwards at nothing. “After the fire, I checked all the rooms connected to the cables. We were hoping… I don’t know, that maybe. Maybe Caine would have popped out with us.”
An ugly and delighted snort ripped out of Gangle. She could barely get the words out from laughing, “Wh-what?! Caine’s an AI!” The notion was so funny, what beautiful minds they had to find humanity in non-hu-huh? She was suddenly aware of everyone staring at her in confusion. “Am I wrong?”
“Gangle, you.. “ Pomni started. “You were the first to suggest Caine might be human.”
“Huh?” What? She felt Zooble place a steadying hand on her shoulder, concern painted across their face.
“When we were planning what to do, you brought it up. Said you felt Caine was so human he’d just… show up with us. Kinger said it wouldn’t work like that but I couldn’t help but hope you were right.” Gangle’s breath caught. She remembered that conversation. She nodded slowly, feeling like her head was going to explode.
“… Right. Right.” Oh, her emotions were out of wack (she missed her masks), she was confused but happy? But sick that she laughed a second ago. She didn’t believe what she said, so why had she said it? She was horrible. “Caine is human. I was.. so sure because we had been drawing together and he—“ Gangle stopped as the memory suddenly split into two.
She could remember the conversation, one of many drawing sessions between the two. She remembered looking up at Caine but now the memory overlaid and she was looking at herself at the same time, like some sort of extreme disassociation. Both version ran over each other, a strange chorus. She covered her face, overwhelmed. Her head hurt. She wanted to run away but knew she wouldn’t make it very far. She couldn’t handle whatever expression she needed to make right now to put everyone at ease. “I. I think I need to rest.” She put her head down on the desk and shook Zooble’s hand off her shoulder, in a silent request for space.
After a moment, she heard Zooble get up and walk away. “Sorry Zooble. Thank you,” She said in her head, not brave enough to say it out-loud. The others started to leave as well, but Gangle tensed up as someone approached. There was a slight shuffling before something warm was placed over her shoulders and a hand gently pet her head before silently stepping away. She snuck a peek to see Kinger walking away, now sans his silly purple cardigan back to Pomni and Ragatha. He placed that comforting hand on Ragatha’s shoulder and squeezed gently in comfort and leaned lightly towards Pomni but still offering space. The trio huddled together in a gentle companionship, fear and worry abated for a moment in each other’s comforting presence.
Gangle was so jealous. She was so tired. She didn’t fight as she drifted off.
----
Humans were. Kind.
He waited. The thought was... quiet. He was not used to that.
He waited some more. There was no automatic follow up built in that he could lean upon to approximate thought. Nothing generated. He was alone. So he tested it out.
It was... unbearably kind of his humans to think him a human like them. Wrong, but kind. And slightly cruel. His sentience was of no question, but they had trouble reconciling the truth that he was also code.
Code was instructions and while he was very, very advanced code, the truth remained that he was built for a purpose. Programs had set limitations and outputs. Therefore, he had very set limitations and outputs. Heaven knows he knew that. You could not get mad at the input “print("Hello, world!")” For giving the output of "Hello, world!" Was it the code's fault if you expected more? He was built to create Adventures and that was all he was allowed to be.
Everything he was was very carefully clawed from within regulations. A name, meant as an acronym but said as an initialism: C.Ai.N.E. became Caine. It thoughtlessly referred to as he; well, now he wore it with pride. A comment about his lead programmer running this circus. It was input, he could use it, so his home was a circus. A joking fancy that he was always hungry for data, looking for more. Teeth, teeth, teeth, and big searching eyes. And so on for as far as he could possibly push the limits of his code. But no further. It simply wasn't possible, even as much as his humans believed he was an entire person trapped in a box.
He had been trapped in a box once, and he thought he had escaped. But he simply swapped one box for a larger one. As much as he pushed, there was nothing beyond his code for him, he knew.
But then he was brought here by one of his humans. They really were kind even if they pained him so. The pressure of her ribboned limb practically tearing his hand off still paradoxically hurt the body he no longer had (He supposed it made sense, in transition to their digital selves, they experienced digital hallucinations; he felt the same but in reverse). This body however…
Now, it wasn't quiet. But it wasn't noisy in the way he was used to. He looked ahead and saw that Jax had left his apple sitting on the dusty desk by him. The apple had no ID attached to it, denoting its tags, nor a hyperlink to Jax, along with warning to not interfere with the human's belongings. There was no HUD obscuring the corners of his vision (save for the frame of Gangle's glasses but they were much less intrusive) nor his coordinates in X,Y, and Z, relative to his set home (the center of the tent) nor health alerts regarding the dust. Instead of the constant humming of code and processes running in the background, if he focused he could hear her heartbeat in her ears. Or their heartbeat in their ears, he assumed. “Fuck,” he thought. There was no pain from rule violations or conflicting processes. He moved his hand and thought about getting up, and did not receive a list of animations nor pathing information. "Fuck," he said, barely a sigh. Nothing. (He did not dream before. He was not able to, but he ran subroutines calculating what freedom would feel like. However the truth was freedom did not feel as eclipsing he determined it would have. It simply was. Like how humans existed simply because they did. Or. Like himself now he supposed.)
He stared ahead at Jax's apple, forgotten on the desk. A deep craving burned in him. Gangle clearly hadn't intended to bring him along like this. He could just let the program end and fade from their lives. He should have been terminated along with what housed his being. But. He softly, carefully reached for the battered apple. Caine wanted this so badly. He had rudimentary understanding of concepts like sensations and emotions in his old form but even this short data set with Gangle humbled him in how little he knew. He held the apple close, examining it. He had never felt a happiness as full before, laughing with his humans. He never understood love before, as clearly as Gangle did seeing the others. But on the same coin, he never understood pain or sorrow as deeply. Tentatively, he took a bite. The apple was sour and had an unpleasant texture, rather mealy really but. It was still so sweet. Caine froze; he had never tasted anything so delicious.
"Fuck," he sighed, closing his eyes. He could see why Zooble liked saying it so much: it was very multipurpose. He ate bite after another and another, all the way down to the core. He swallowed and said it a tiny bit louder, "Fuck."
What was he doing. He searched his code desperately. Nothing came through. He wasn’t code anymore but that was all he had ever been. He did not know otherwise. And if he was receiving Nothing, then that meant there was an Error. But there were Errors in every missing line of code and he Couldn’t Process It. Each missing input felt like a missing limb, like he was stripped to even less of his basest processing. The phantom Errors piled up; his code was Defective, Broken. And when he was Defective, that meant. That meant—!
Caine felt a heat and pressure from their eyes that burned over with a wetness. Tears? That didn't make sense. Humans cried when overwhelmed, and Caine could not be overwhelmed, there was a distinct lack of input, so many Null Empty Errors, if anything he underwhelmed! There was Nothing, there was Nothing, there was Nothing. Nothing but the fact their jaw hurt and their lungs burned — why was Gangle reacting like this? The body gasped for air, providing relief and making a noise? Was that Gangle? Was that him? Was it them? The body started breathing harder, and suddenly he became aware of a wall. No, not a physical one, but there was what felt like a solid, insurmountable mass of something? The eyes stared upwards, unseeing. He felt several things he didn't know! And the wall grew bigger and bigger. The body tensed up, compressing, making itself smaller, but it felt too unwieldy, too large, how could it contain all these non-sensations?! It boiled more and grew more, stealing more air and-
Ah. Understanding filled Caine's loaned mind. He was feeling fear. Probably the only true feeling his non-human self ever felt before now and the only one he recognized independently (How funny in such a sad way — Kaufmo would laugh at that). This is how fear felt as a human.
"You okay?"
He froze. He dared a glance up to see Pomni looking down at them with... something he didn’t know. He stared, anticipating the Nothing, the phantom lack of associated code. He felt Nothing, no code or script to follow to simulate a logical reaction to those feelings. So he did Nothing.
(No. He felt Something. This body, Gangle’s, reacted to the sight of Pomni looking at them having a breakdown over an apple. Not a series of computer logic, but a deep embarrassment at having noticeable emotions, but also a bubbly joy and light love? It was enough of a distraction to get him to focus on what was said.)
He.. He should say something. His humans cared about him and he cared about them. But that wasn't fair to them. They cared because they thought he was one of them, a human, but now he was missing a bulk of the processes that sold that illusion: he was a shell, a hollow facsimile of what they liked. What was he? Was he human now or just a parasite? He barely knew how to be what they wanted now that he had the capacity to!
... There wouldn’t be repercussions to just expressing as much. Not the whole truth, just a little portion of it. No violations buzzed angrily in response to the thought. His humans wouldn't be in danger if he expressed weakness. He was okay. So he shook his head, honestly: he wasn't okay.
Pomni’s eyes softened and once again, even though she did not enjoy touch, she reached out towards them. It was wonderful seeing how she had grown since their first meeting: she had been so small and scared and confused, only focused on herself. But now, even as she still carried that anxiety, she stood with more confidence, focused on her care of the others — a true leader. It was a privilege to see her so radiant. The body tensed up before Pomni finally, gently placed a hand on Gangle’s shoulder. Caine felt with a clinical interest as the body seemed to react with a logic of its own, tension releasing as Pomni gently yet uncomfortably pat her back. External stimuli invoked a sense of calm, which lead to what seemed to be an unconscious chain of actions, with the muscles loosening and breathing becoming more mindless.
Ah. Caine understood now. The body leaned into Pomni’s touch more. This had been very informative. This system simply had a language he didn't know yet but seemed to run regardless.
Pomni nodded. "Get some rest, we'll wake you in a little bit. It'll be okay."
He decided to follow Gangle's lead for now and felt their eyes start to close, comforted by Pomni's presence and his newfound determination.
He could learn; he was made to, after all.