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At first, when Ragatha had offered her to “meet up for coffee”, Pomni had been hesitant. She liked, no, loved Ragatha’s company, and she definitely needed a bit of a treat, but — and it was kind of a big “but” — being alone with Ragatha often brought forward thoughts she would’ve rather not have. Thoughts of Jax, of what Pomni was supposed to say about her, how much was she allowed to say. It wasn’t as much of an issue with Zooble, who was still silently grieving in their own Zooble way, nor Gangle, whose Jax’s name still made her flinch on instinct. Ragatha, on the other hand…
But before Pomni’s brain could build that whole castle of explanations and excuses — hard to tell the difference sometimes — her traitorous mouth had said “Yes! I mean, cool, yeah, that’d be… cool.” Smooth as always.
“Are you doing okay?” Ragatha’s voice pulled Pomni from her thoughts.
“Sorry, yeah, just a lot on my mind,” Pomni rubbed the back of her neck. The plastic-like sensation of her skin was not something the jester gave much mind to anymore, but she was focusing a lot on that at the moment. Anything to keep her mind and hands busy.
“Oh, makes sense, we could reschedule.” There was her opening. It would’ve been so easy to nod and apologize. It wasn’t like they didn’t have the rest of eternity to get coffee together.
“What? Pft, nah.” She even waved her hand dismissively. She wasn’t just digging her own grave, but actively fighting the people trying to get her out of there.
Pomni just didn’t work well in low stress environments. It was something she had learned with time but, for some reasons, a normal and peaceful life drove her crazy, made her anxious and fidgety. That was why she had needed to go out and explore abandoned buildings once every while. Having to run when a nosy passerby called the cops made everything else feel like such a non-issue.
The circus had been too high-stress at first, but after a while there had been an in-between where Pomni had found her balance, a way to do something crazy but contained. And then, of course, everything had gone to shit.
Now things were back being too calm, too much time, too much freedom.
Pomni had watched Matrix when she was around twelve and couldn’t help but think that, maybe, it was true that humans couldn’t live in a perfect environment without going crazy. Or maybe it was just her.
What could she even do, though? Ask Caine to give her a nine-to-five, low salary and high rent?
“You’re slipping again,” pointed out Ragatha. Pomni blinked, about to disagree when she realized she had definitely been “slipping” since they were already in front of the coffee shop. Hell, she had to get her shit together, it was getting ridiculous.
“Sorry,” Pomni took the lead and opened the door, holding it for Ragatha, who let a smile spread on her face before giving a soft “thank you.”
“Do you want to talk about what you’ve been thinking about?” asked the doll now standing next to her once again. Her voice was clearly concerned, which wasn’t helping Pomni with the guilt she already felt.
“Just… Matrix and stuff like that,” she dismissed, looking around the small cafè.
“What’s that?” Ragatha had the decency to flush red when Pomni glared at her.
“You never heard of Breaking Bad nor Matrix, seriously? What time were you born?”
“Eighty-seven, you know that,” Ragatha opened her mouth to add something but seemed to come to a realization instead.
“You’re dodging my question.” Technically, she hadn’t, but how could Pomni explain how her brain had actually came up with Matrix in correlation with the death of their friend.
“I’d rather not sour the mood,” she said, smiling to show just how completely unbothered she was. Ragatha frowned. Great. What happened to Pomni’s golden improv skills?
“We could sit here,” offered the jester, pointing at the closest spot she found, so she could get Ragatha’s eye off her for just a second.
“Next to the window?” It was a bit weird, now that Pomni was thinking about it. They tended to sit in front of the wall, on high chairs. The table Pomni had picked in a panic, on the other hand, was usually forgotten in the background like the rest of the room.
“Change is good, right?” Corny. Pomni could hear Jax’s voice saying it.
Ignoring that, the jester plopped down on a chair and leaned over the table with her elbows, watching Ragatha expectantly until she, too, sat down. They weren’t opposite each other, but neither were they shoulder to shoulder, leaving the expectation for almost-constant eye contact. Great. Everything was just so great.
“Oh, look, Caine updated the menu,” Pomni pushed the piece of thick paper toward Ragatha, pointing to a drink with an unpronounceable name — Irish Red Eye Latte triple sugar, maple syrup, salt — she had never seen before. The doll was still looking at her but seemed to drop whatever she wanted to say as she lowered her gaze to the menu.
“That’s nice of him,” she nodded to herself “I wonder what he put in it, though.”
“Should we try it?” If anything, if it tasted like shit, it could drown out any negative thought. And if it was good, even just decent, it would do for a nice hangout drink?
“I’ll pass, I’m not a fan of Irish coffee,” Pomni tilted her head to the side.
“Why? What’s in it?”
“Whiskey, I don’t really like the taste.” That was only another reason for Pomni to get that one. Alcohol wasn’t as strong in the circus as it was outside, and it would probably be such a small amount she wouldn’t even feel it, but she held out hope.
“Not surprised,” she snorted before covering her face with the menu and avoid the look she knew Ragatha was sending her.
Ordering drinks in the cafè worked like a sort of assisted manifesting, or so Pomni imagined it as. All they had to do was think about the drink they wanted and it would appear, steaming hot, in front of them. The actual workings behind the process were as much of a mystery as many other things in the circus, but Pomni had quickly realized she didn’t need to know everything for everything to still work just fine.
When Pomni lowered her menu she found herself face to face with a light pink cup filled to the brim and with a swirl of foam on top. In the real world, that look would’ve lasted about five seconds max, but in the circus Pomni could come back in an hour and still find the coffee as she had left it.
Next to her, Ragatha was already taking her own baby-blue one. Pomni suspected it to be a cappuccino since that was what the other woman usually took whenever they were up there.
“How have you been doing?” asked Ragatha after taking a small sip off her coffee, she leaned slightly over the table and propped her cheek on her free hand to look over at Pomni.
“You know, the usual,” she shrugged, “I’m starting to think I should actually get on an adventure or something, is that weird?”
“Why would it be?” Ragatha looked down at Pomni’s drink which prompted the jester to take a sip. Yeah, there was whiskey alright. It was absurd how something could be both too sweet and too bitter.
“I think we all need to have some kind of activity to keep our mind busy,” she added, not before chuckling at the disgusted face Pomni made drinking her coffee.
“You’ve been playing softball, right?” It was a pretty useless question. Everyone knew Ragatha played softball already, still, the way the doll lit up when asked made Pomni’s whole body feel a bit warmer.
“Yes!” she said immediately, “I know you don’t like sports but… I mean, you could come to… watch? That sounds weird.”
“Not any weirder than staring at Zooble making drinks and flirting with Gangle for half a day twice a week.” Pomni pushed her coffee away and gave Ragatha her full attention.
“Do you think they’re dating now?” The taller woman blushed at the mere mention of it, which Pomni found sort of cute. In what way, she didn’t care to explore.
“Don’t you?” she retorted.
“I didn’t want to assume!” Pomni rolled her eyes. Seriously?
To hide her very judgmental look Pomni took a big sip of her coffee, momentarily forgetting how much it sucked.
“Gosh, is it that bad?” wondered Ragatha, leaning closer to Pomni without touching her. The jester had come to appreciate how careful her friend was about her touch-aversion.
“Wanna tell me yourself?” Pomni pushed her cup in front of Ragatha’s nose. She took a small sniff and grimaced, but still put down her coffee to hold Pomni’s.
She looked at the still perfectly modeled foam and inspected it like it could bite before sighing and going for it. Her reaction was much more theatrical than Pomni’s. She almost dropped the coffee and coughed as if she had been choking.
Pomni watched with amusement as the doll covered the bad taste with her own coffee only to look even more disgusted. The look she gave the jester was one of pure betrayal.
Pomni smiled even wider. She really loved Ragatha — she did? — and it was easy to love her more every day. Every time another piece of her perfect facade broke Pomni realized she was completely enamored by the real woman underneath it. No matter how messy she was. She was kind of drawn to messy people, she had realized with time. Jax had been proof enough of that and, although Ragatha was messy in another way, they seemed two faces of the same coin.
Suddenly Pomni’s thoughts spiraled into a darker place. What if Ragatha had been the one abstracting? What if she abstracted in a day, a month or a year. What then? What would be left of Pomni — of everyone — if she did.
Of course, Pomni would be there for her like she was for Jax, but aside from that there would be nothing she could do. No way to save her.
She’d be the one surviving, again.
She…
“Pomni?” Ragatha’s voice was far away, but she heard her nonetheless.
“Huh? Sorry, did you say something?” Ragatha was looking concerned again.
“I’m not trying to pry or anything but…” the doll looked down at her half-empty cup and held it a bit too tightly.
“I know. I know, I want to talk about this, really, but I don’t know if you’d even get it.” Pomni sighed, it was more than that, but she couldn’t even elaborate. Ragatha looked up to smile at her and that sort of melted Pomni’s insides.
“Try me.”
Pomni hesitated, closing herself in her shoulder before ultimately deciding she had nothing left to lose.
“I’m scared,” she started. That was easy. Fear was an emotion she was familiar with and that she could identify with little to no issue.
“I’m scared that this peace we’re having is temporary, that something terrible is going to happen and… I’m scared you, o-or anyone, is going to abstract and I won’t be able to do anything and-“ Ragatha placed her hand on Pomni’s knee and only then did the jester realize she had been pulling on her gloves the whole time she had been talking.
“I think I do get that,” she said, “Ribbit was the first abstraction I witnessed and… really I get it.”
Obviously she did. Pomni’s tunnel vision had somehow made her forget Ragatha had been in the circus for much longer than her.
“Yeah, sorry. You’ll think I’m kinda self centered now.” Ragatha immediately shook her head, drawing her hand away to put it back on her own lap.
“No, I think what you’re feeling is… pretty normal? I’m not- not normal but… you’re allowed to be… scared.”
“It’s not just that,” she admitted, tapping her index against the wooden table in front of her.
“I feel responsible, in a way. I couldn’t help Jax, what if I can’t help you either?” Ragatha was taken aback by that and when Pomni chanced a glance at her, she noticed how deep in thought she was.
The jester appreciated her friend actually thinking about her concerns instead of giving a hollow positive answer like she would’ve done months prior.
“The thing about Jax is- was… no approach was ever gonna help, because you can’t help someone that doesn’t want to be helped.” It sounded like she was talking from experience.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, but at the end of the day you’re not responsible for other people’s lives, not like that.”
The room felt colder, but it wasn’t possible, the temperature was supposed to always be just right.
“You can’t feel guilty for something you couldn’t have prevented.” This time it was Pomni reaching out, putting her hand over Ragatha’s without looking at her.
“I still do.”
“Me too.”
Some time passed in complete silence. Pomni would’ve liked to say something — anything — but her head was full of static and her tongue was tied. The only thing she could really feel was Ragatha’s hand under hers. Which was why she was particularly aware of the other woman turning her palm up and kind of interlocking their fingers — as much as she could with her mitten-like hand.
“We just need to keep going until we don’t anymore.” She offered in a whisper.
“What if we never get to that.” How could Pomni ever not feel guilty?
“We still keep going, and we talk about it.” Ragatha looked straight at Pomni, who felt even smaller because of that. The statement was targeted, clearly, but the jester hoped her friend would take her own advice.
“We talk about it.” Pomni nodded, squeezing Ragatha’s hand before forcing herself to pull away.
They both still had a coffee to finish.