Chapter Text
Chapter 1
As The Year Grows Old
Another day, another adventure.
It had been easy to think that at times when you were in the Circus, a defense mechanism that routine imparted. Just let yourself go with the flow of existence here, because it was easier than trying to change things. Change things, here? What chance would anything like that have had here?
Yet, change had come, slowly and not always wanted at first by some, but it had come. Gangle tried to imagine Caine willing to cede even a bit of control of adventures back when she’d first arrived in the Circus and found it hard to imagine. The question though was, had the option always been on the table, yet the humans had never really tried to utilize it, or had Caine changed over time as well, to the point where such a thing was possible? She wasn’t sure which was the truth, or perhaps both were the truth in a way.
Caine...there was a figure she was starting to re-evaluate. For so long, he’d been to her the loud, ebullient ringmaster who sort of was there, handing out an adventure each day and not so gently nudging the humans to participate. It had been hard to see him as anything other than the looming figure who controlled the Circus and at times, did what he felt the humans needed, rather than wanted. But the recent weeks had shown a new side of Caine, one where he was willing to listen to the humans, to negotiate and act in a way that frankly was odd to see, as much it was welcome.
But that change had to have an exchange on their end as well. The humans couldn’t just receive, they had to give as well. Even something as simple as honest feedback on adventures or changes to the Circus that Caine had whipped up. Gangle had been scared at first to do so, her own fears regarding art and criticism rearing their head. It’d been why she’d gone into the job she had, looking to financial security over getting her dreams up. And how had that ended for her, other than developing depression from the work-a-day drudgery.
In all honesty, if she’d had a choice between returning to her life as a manager or going back to that lighthouse, she’d choose the second one.
But, with the encouragement of Pomni and Ragatha, she’d worked up the courage to start offering her feelings on adventures, not just a list of likes and dislikes, but reactions to the ones they participated in. Caine seemed appreciative of the feedback, at first in ways that almost scared her off in its intensity before he leveled it down to a less interrogative and more conversational approach. She’d shared her thoughts, critical appraisal, and a few points that she had felt had been surprising, in a good way. Caine had taken it all in, doffed his top hat when she was done and thanked her for her words.
Thanked her.
And it wasn’t just adventures that Caine was listening to. Improvements around the Circus had been happening as well, whether it was the noticeably less intense lighting that now allowed Kinger to interact with the others in a way that didn’t have him startling the second he spied Gangle standing next to him. Or the improvements to door security in the living quarters, and expanding the menu in the cafe. There was still the ever distant expansions which seemed to have snarled in their completion, but she could wait to see those.
Caine had also kept to the agreement regarding the two player suggestions and one “no adventure today pass” a week thing they’d signed several days ago. He’d put the human adventures back to back, turning it into a sort of weekend affair. Five days of Caine, two human. Made a sort of sense, honestly.
She and Zooble had used theirs on the first human adventure, ironically enough, a Jax one about racing, and Caine had left a little digital TV in the couch area for them to follow the race if they so chose. She’d sat, half-listening to Kinger commentating on the race with Caine, Jax, Ragatha and Pomni racing against each other and NPC drivers for what seemed like hours. Zooble had sat nearby reading the Weekly Tentpole, the magazine that Caine printed for each of them every week. Caine was good at creating “fiendishly difficult crosswords and word-searches” by Zooble, praise in its own way.
The race itself hadn’t really been of interest, but both Gangle and Zooble had given cheers when Caine had announced that Ragatha had won first place, Jax second, and Pomni fourth (an NPC had won third.) She certainly felt a little thrill at Jax being beaten in his own adventure, and though a small part of her wondered if it was a little unkind, it was hard to not feel that way. Jax hadn’t gotten any worse of late, but that didn’t mean he’d gotten better. Everyone else was changing, in small or big ways to the Circus. The fact that Caine was trying to meet them halfway, and the humans were trying to as well, showed how much the rabbit was refusing to budge. And as much as Jax had done to cause her grief, she wasn’t sure she wanted Jax to suffer the fate of Abstraction.
But what could she do? Gangle had never really been confident about things, and going up to Jax and asking him why he was staying stagnant when everyone else was walking forward sounded like a great way to return his focus on her in ways she didn’t want. So, she’d done nothing, because right now, it was honestly easier to deal with Jax as he was, rather than whatever she might accidentally provoke him into. Especially if the truth that he’d been involved in the abstraction of Ribbit was true, and Ragathas words on that during their second slumber party, held in Zoobles room this time, seemed to back up that. She of course had never met Ribbit, only seen her face crossed out in the living quarters hallway, her arrival apparently only a short-while after the abstraction. Kinger had been Kinger, Ragatha forced to secrecy by Jax, and Kaufmo growing increasingly distant and dismayed as his own breakdown in friendship with Jax occurred.
She thankfully hadn’t had to deal with Jax on today’s adventure, after the rabbit had used his pass because it had sounded “boring and lame.”
Gangle had asked for a modification to the adventure, the choice originally having been about working at a fast food restaurant. Visions of her life in the real world swam before her, and she’d stepped forward, asking if the general idea of working a regular job could, perhaps they change venue? Caine had paced and puzzled, before nodding and creating the adventure. There’d been trepidation going in, but it had melted away when she’d found the place they were to spend in “A Day Doing Retail Work...Adventure.”
It had been a cozy little bookstore, set on a street with shops nearby, the smell of coffee and pastries wafting from a little bakery and cafe combo across the way. There were various tasks and the like, but there wasn’t the relentless work-a-day pressure of the fast-food option. Zooble had suggested that rather than any one being single manager, they instead have it as employee run, with everyone taking turns. Gangle had done artwork for the chalkboards that announced things as simple as pricing to just being there for decorating, ran the register, restocked books, or just sat for awhile during lulls and doodled the street outside. Now, with the adventure over, they were back in the common area.
Or..and these were pages she was not going to share with the two, but she’d also sketched out images that while certainly were G in terms of rating, were perhaps a bit more declarative of her thoughts on the now awkward to watch dance that was Ragatha and Pomni trying to navigate their...whatever the heck it was. She didn’t think they’d appreciate her particular vision right now, and she knew enough that pushing them on it wouldn’t end like one of her romance anime series. The best she could do was be there to offer support or advice when asked.
Speaking of the two, Pomni was laying on the sofa, her head resting on Ragathas lap, and did the two just not see…’no, no, don’t push what you think you see’, she thought, even as she sketched out an image she was planning on giving to Caine. It was one of her most detailed, Caine standing near an English cottage and tending to beehives, his regular outfit changed for a beekeepers duds. It was peaceful in the Circus right now.
Hopefully...it would last.
* * *
Pomni was thinking on a lot of things right now. First off was Caine. There were a lot of things about Caine she could say, but one thing she couldn’t say was that he or his adventures were boring. That would have been a lie.
She hid beneath a copse of trees and bushes, her face peeking out just a little, and watching the giant tripod machine stomp past. Because there was nothing boring about Caine having decided to do a survival adventure based on “War of the Worlds.” She’d used up her pass on a zombie adventure that apparently Caine had actually taken part in two days ago. Pomni wasn’t sure it if was just ill-luck or Caine was getting clever about scheduling these sorts of things. Kinger apparently had shown Caine the old 50’s adaptation awhile back, and that had gotten Caine thinking that basing an adventure on the original book was a great idea.
And it wasn’t like she could say he wasn’t putting his all into an adventure that wasn’t a Caine original. It was a point of pride for Caine to put his craftsmanship into his adventures, so expecting him to drop the ball on this was a bit unlikely. Oh no, Caine had very much put the full efforts of adventure creation into effect here. That was part of the problem.
Caine tended to utilize the artists mannequins as NPCs for most of his adventures, easy to fill out crowds and short-lived interactions. Ones who were plot relevant tended to be more detailed in appearance and personality. That’d been part of the whole thing with Gumigoo, hadn’t it? He’d felt all too real, at that low point. Could he have been more? That was up for debate, but she always had to wonder if NPC’s could be more than just parts of the plot. At least with the mannequins, she didn’t have to work as hard to separate their artificial nature as with other characters.
He’d introduced new NPC designs for this adventure. They weren’t realistically human, but they were night and day in a way to the mannequins. They were human, but in a sort of doughy, clay way that put her in mind of that British stop-motion series with the inventor, his dog, and the penguin disguised as a chicken. Enough out of the uncanny valley to be charming, likeable, less...wooden, both metaphorically and literally.
And then he’d set Martians on them. Oh, that had been a sight to see, one she was sure to see again when trying to sleep tonight.
She shook her head. Get through the adventure, figure out comment card to Caine later.
The second thing that had been barging around her head was the Ragatha thing. Because that had been growing ever closer in the rear-view mirror to put it one way. She liked Ragatha, and there had been less of her forced smile and pleasing everyone. As if she was starting to take her first steps of figuring out who she was away from memories of her mother or what she believed others expected of her. Which was good and great, and Pomni was behind her in breaking out the constraints that had been imposed not only by others, but by Ragatha herself.
But there was the other thing, the thing that made their interactions a roll of the dice half the time. Because it was clear that Ragatha, while now a bit confident and understanding of her sexuality, was holding a torch that bore Pomnis name. Which was scary, because Pomni wasn’t sure what to do with that. She liked Ragatha yes, but did she like like her that way? There was a lot of interrogating to be done there, and she wasn’t sure if now while escaping deadly alien invaders was the best time, though there probably were worse times.
Part of the issue was that romance in the Circus carried heavy baggage. If it didn’t work out, you had no respite from the failure of a relationship, the hurt look you saw in your potential other partners eyes, having to put on a face each and every-day. It would break not just a romance, but friendship. If that wasn’t a recipe for potential abstracting, it was a starting ingredient. It would feel wrong to go in and believe that it could just work out. As much as the Circus could feel dreamlike, the feelings everyone felt inside the Circus weren’t a dream.
She ran a hand down her face, as she scuttled through the underbrush, away from where the fighting machines had headed.
Secondly, was she really the best choice? Pomnu knew she could be tactless, abrasive, selectively empathetic, easy to anger, and a tendency to jump to conclusions on things. She didn’t consider herself exactly thrilling partner material either. A homebody back in the real world unless she was urban exploring or going out for dinner and a quiet drink at the little bar five blocks from her apartment. She liked a schedule and routine. What was it the great detective had said about his older brother that could apply to her?
“It would have been as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Pomni had her rails and she ran on them. Work, home, the bar...that was her cycle.”
It wasn’t as if she didn’t find Ragatha attractive. High School had brought forth her own understanding of herself, and in the practical way of her upbringing, there hadn’t been a lot of deep back and forth on the subject, just a general shift in understanding of herself, and sexuality, and deciding that was that. Which admittedly wasn’t the case for a lot of people, so she knew she was perhaps an outlier. Would that be an issue? Ragatha had spent the last month or so finally figuring out her own sexual orientation and being comfortable with herself after decades of being made to feel that it was wrong by others.
Shit...this is partly why she’d left romance for later back in the real world. It was too messy and easy to get in your own head about this.
Huh...was this was Ragatha was possibly going through?
Shaking her head, Pomni took a chance and started running through the woods, back towards town, back towards the house where she had resided with Ragatha upon starting this adventure. And oh, the fact that the adventure had placed them as a couple (so soon after the spy one) was starting to make her wonder if Caine had realized something and was trying to play matchmaker (possible, if unlikely) or if they could somehow influence the randomizer (also possible, would have to test.)
Villagers in the town who hadn’t gone to the Common were standing around, wondering what the distant fires were. Pomni tried not to think about what those fires were, because she knew what they were, and now the adventure was resetting itself as the thing in her center of her mind again.
She burst into the front door of the house, and staggered into the drawing room, where she sat upon a chair.
“Pomni, are you okay,” and Ragatha bustled in, and now the other thing flared up again, because even tired and frightened by the adventure, Pomni’s apparently had a thing for Ragatha in Edwardian fashion. That...was going to have to be interrogated later.
“Yes, I...the Common…” and she tried to find the words, flustered between recent horrific events and that skirt and shirtwaist/tie/vest combo Ragatha was wearing.
It was at this instant that a song began to play, and both looked around in confusion. Pomni listened to the first few verses, and gripped her chair in frustration. Now? Now? Now Caine was willing to lift his self-imposed “no using licensed media directly?”
The summer sun is fading as the year grows old
And darker days are drawing near
The winter winds will be much colder
Now you're not here
I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky
And one by one they disappear
I wish that I was flying with them
Now you're not here
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away
Goddammit Caine.