Chapter Text
Tk tk tk tk tk tk.
The sound of tightly packed bean bags hitting tile.
It took her a couple weeks of being distant friends, a full week of mutual pining and nearly two months of being in a relationship to finally realize what Ragatha's feet were stuffed with.
Pomni screwed her eyes shut as those bead filled shoes thudded softly up and down the length of their bedroom.
"Everything okay?" Pomni called out from her pile of blankets and pillows. She kept her gaze locked on the ceiling.
The pacing stopped. "Uh, yeah. Yeah!" Ragatha called back. Although Pomni wasn't looking, she had a strong suspicion her girlfriend was in the process of running her hands over one another. "Juuuuuust a few more minutes, Pom. I've almost got this figured out, 'kay?"
Pomni made a non committal grunt, and the pacing resumed.
It would not be a few more minutes. That was the same thing she had said the night before, and night before that. Her lovely girlfriend had picked up the unfortunate habit of turning their bedroom into a stationary treadmill to work through her thoughts. That same treadmill would run until she figured out a solution, or she crashed into their bed face down.
Pomni didn't considering herself a gambling woman, but she'd bet every dollar on black the latter would be happening tonight. There had been far too many loud, groans of frustration followed by meek apologies for that not to be the case.
She dug her nails into her wrists.
A practical person. That was how she had always thought of herself. She understood emotions, and she had them in spades. But, her approach to them and the issues that resulted had her always donning a mechanic's helmet, over a therapist's conflated sense of ego. Have a bad day at work? Unwind with a cigarette, parse through her thoughts and stare at her fish. When that wasn't enough, she'd gear up and hit the infrastructure that had slipped through the cracks of commerce. Treating locks like suggestions and glass like fragile doors had been the best decompression that money couldn't buy.
Really, She treated emotions like puzzles. The good ones had already been completed while she had been in diapers, and the bad ones were just those same good ones all mixed up. Every one had a solution, it was just a matter of how creative you were. This probably made her a little bit simple she had realized since, but she didn't mind. She had seen the alternative, and it really sucked.
The past three nights her girlfriend had, more or less, spent the night metaphorically interfacing with a glowing, four dimensional tesseract with randomly generated solutions and pacing like she had a ticking time bomb strapped to her chest. This was just the culmination of over a month of dealing with over a hundred named and unnamed NPCs, all with a litany of problems who wanted nothing more than to offload them onto the one person who couldn't say no, and who had all of the power in the world to actually do something about them.
It was the kind of emotional puzzle that made Pomni feel like a neanderthal staring down the barrel of a large hadron collider.
Ragatha, was far more of an emotional person than she. She felt things twice as strongly, she often reacted twice as strongly. It was something she loved about her. It was that sun breaking through the clouds kind of expression of joy that, when it shone on Pomni's face, she could just for a second, forget about the fact that she felt like a candle in front of a roaring fire.
That, of course, also meant the way she grappled with her issues rocked her to her core. Pomni could get away with letting her mind chip away at an issue until she had an 'ah hah!' moment in the middle of breakfast. Whereas her girlfriend either needed to get to the bottom of the issue there and then, or she would just bottle it up, tie it to a cinderblock huck it into the Atlantic. Or, the digital lake, in this case.
It used to be just the latter, for her. An issue among many that had come up in their nightly talks about nothing and everything. Nowadays, Ragatha was very forward with her feelings on things, and her emotions often burbled to the surface at the drop of a hat.
Just like tonight.
Sick of seeing her girlfriend put new holes in their tile and worry herself to undeath, she decided to do the one thing she could do in these situations. Listen, and offer advice.
She swung her legs over their bed and caught Ragatha in her gaze. She froze like a deer in headlights. "What's going on?" Pomni asked tentatively.
Realizing it was a question and not a car barreling towards her at 65 miles per house, Ragatha relaxed. But, only a little. She flexed her hands, looking to the side like their wardrobe could bail her out. When it didn't, she spoke. "Wellit'sjustthere'salotgoingonrightnow." She exhaled in one breath, and opened her arms like that succinctly explained the issues keeping her up.
Pomni nodded slowly, and simply patted the spot next to her. "Let's start at the beginning, maybe? If there is one?" Pomni hazarded as Ragatha sat a foot from her. The distance was a silly thing to notice, but she had become used to these kinds of thoughts. She had surmised it just came with being in a relationship. Sometimes, all she could think about was the distance, and how to close it.
Ragatha bore an expression of guilt, mixed with something she couldn't identify. "Well..." She started, nervously drumming her fingers onto her nightgown. "For starters, Lou has been... getting a little too devoted?"
The Jester furrowed her brow, raising her neck. "What does that mean?"
Her girlfriend put her hands in the spin cycle and then shook them dry. "I don't really know?? She just keeps bringing up the concept of 'new ways to devote herself and her people to me' and it just makes me really, really worried she's going to something... bad." She finished, gritting her teeth and hunching over herself.
Pomni clicked her tongue. "Yeah, that girl's insane. What else?"
Ragatha looked thrown by the question, but she didn't stay airborne for long. "I've had to keep a close, close eye on the bar recently, because..." She mimed taking a big, long gulp out of her closed fist. "Evil Ragatha has been getting black out drunk like, every night If I don't stop her. And, when I do..." She ran her face over her hand. "It's not a pretty scene."
"Right, yeah, I've noticed... that. What else?" Pomni asked, tilted her head.
The older woman rubbed her forearms. "And I've got couples therapy tomorrow. Two appointments! God, if I told you who they were for, you'd never believe me."
Pomni yawned, rubbing her moistening eye with the palm of her hand. "Mhm." She said nothing further, instead relegating to flop back onto their bed. So much for advice. She could lambast herself for being a bad girlfriend in the morning.
This was about all she could do when Ragatha got like this. The stress of managing the Circus was clearly a lot, but, Pomni didn't know what else to do except be by her side when she needed it. She wasn't the one with truly unlimited, untapped power. Pomni felt very limited and, at the moment, exceedingly tapped.
She felt weight leave the bed and, just half a second later, the sound of beaded shoes tapping on tile started up again. Pomni stifled the urge to groan, that would just make Ragatha feel worse than she already did. Her only two options were to lie here and wait till exhaustion took her... or go pass out on the couch. The former would ruin her day tomorrow, and the latter... well, she hadn't done that before to Ragatha and she didn't want to start now.
Tk tk tk tk tk tk.
It reminded Pomni of how she used to get during tax season. The supermarket chain she had worked for had been more than little disorganized when it handled corporate matters. There was no better showcase than the month of April in its entirety. The only thing separating her workplace from an insane asylum at that time of the year was the way the shirts were fastened. In the nights after, she not so fondly remembered pacing up and down the length of her tiny little apartment, cursing her superiors and peers under her breath well into the wee hours of the night. At the very least, her fish got a show to along with their flakes.
The only thing that had made her feel better then was spending the following weekend doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted and not thinking about work for a second. Then, come Monday, while she wasn't exactly fresh faced and bushy tailed, she didn't feel the urge to rip Robert's head off when he made those snide remarks on his way to his cubicle.
There really wasn't much better than a day off, in those cases.
Pomni sat up so quickly the pillow on her chest thumped into the adjacent wall. The digital world's most suicidal deer froze again, and she stood up quickly to face her. "What's wrong?" Ragatha asked, looking almost as guilty as that one time she booked her for murder.
"I need to make a call." With that, she stepped out of their room and closed the door, leaving Ragatha's perplexed, worried expression in the gloom of their room.
Pomni stared down at the heavy, clunky landline she had pulled out onto the patio with her. For some reason or another, she always had to take a second to remember how to operate this relic. Oh, right. She picked up the receiver, stuck her pinkie in the hole for '1', rotated the dial clockwise and let it reset with a ding.
She brought the receiver to her ear and waited. With any luck, it was a late night at Ragatha's office.
The other side of the line crackled to life, and a hesitant voice fought through the interference to greet her. "Hello? May I ask who I am speaking to?" It asked politely.
Pomni felt a relaxed smile grace her lips. "Hey Kinger."
"Pomni!" The voice changed tones in a heartbeat, becoming jovial, if a bit groggy. "What can I do for you?" Kinger asked. Before she could answer, the voice spoke up again. "Is... everything all right? Bit of a late call for you." He continued, his voice dropping to a nervous mumble.
She worked her jaw. "Things are... fine. Well, actually... It's about Ragatha."
The other end of the phone went silent for a moment. "What's going on?" The voice on the other end asked cautiously.
Pomni licked her lips. "She's running herself ragged over here." She started, leaning into the comfortable wicker chair. "Past three nights, she's been up till nearly dawn pacing in our room. Neither of us can sleep." Pomni ran her free hand over her face, letting her eyelid pop back into place with a snap. "She's stressed about work."
Once again, Kinger was quiet for a moment before speaking up. "I'm sorry to hear that. I can't say I'm surprised, though. Running the Circus nearly solo is bound to do that to a person, especially with all the new faces lately." The chess piece chuckled into the phone. "I try my darndest to help her but... she doesn't want to 'burden' me, as she puts it. I keep telling her I'm not gonna go loony again, but... you know how she is, Pomni."
She switched the receiver to the other side of her head. "I do. Which, is why I had an idea."
"Oh?" Kinger chirped into the receiver.
"More than anything, anything at all, Ragatha needs a day off. She hasn't had one in what..." She trailed off, furrowing her brow. "Uh, since ever? She's been crazy busy since we brought the NPCs back in."
For the third time, there was that same silence. "A day off." He echoed, his tone flat. "Is... this what she wants?"
Pomni scoffed, crossing her legs. "Yeah, of course she does. She's going to blow a gasket like this." She sniffed, leaning back to rest her shoulder over the edge of the wicker chair. "D'you think you and the others can, I don't know, handle the place for just one day?"
It was like clockwork at this point. Except, this time the silence stretched into infinity. After the death and subsequent rebirth of the universe, the man on the other end spoke up. "Pomni... I don't know if this is such a good idea." His tone was hesitant, nervous.
She wanted to chew the mouth of the receiver. "Kinger, please." She quietly begged, pressing her face into the phone. "We- she needs this, okay? Running the Circus is all she thinks about, she deserves just one, one day off."
There was a quiet inhale on the other end of the phone, then, "All right, I'll see what I can do."
Pomni let out a worn sigh into the receiver. It was a sharp breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "God, thank you so much. Seriously."
"Of course, anything for you and Ragatha. You know..." His voice grew lighter. "It's probably for the best you and Ragatha have the day together. Plenty of time to talk, and all."
Pomni couldn't agree more. "No complaints there. Hey, real quick there were a few relevant things Ragatha mentioned to me just now. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."
"Hm?" Kinger hummed. "Here, let me get my notepad..." Pomni heard the sound of drawers opening and slamming in quick succession. "Ah, here's the little devil! All right, let's hear it."
Pomni quickly sped through everything Ragatha had mentioned in the bedroom, quietly bade her good friend a better night, and clicked the receiver in the handset. A little, nagging nugget of guilt planted itself into her stomach.
She quietly fingered the hole to dial and left her digit in there.
Ragatha needed this. It made it all worth it.
Pomni hefted the landline under her arm and shimmied past the screen door. Regardless, It would feel nice to have some good news to break to her girlfriend.
The morning after was bright, airy and beautiful. The sun happily shone through the windows of their cottage, still completely unaware that no one in the Circus could hear her anymore. Ragatha quietly sat at their dining room table, while Pomni finished up the touches on her favorite breakfast dish.
She ladled the meat filled gravy onto the warm biscuits, and topped the whole thing with a fried egg with the yolk both still intact, and runny. She slid that onto a tray, along with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of fruit. Pomni gave her fingers a chef's kiss... and then immediately washed her hands. Ragatha had, at her behest weeks ago, did a deep dive and discovered that germs didn't actually exist here. Old habits died harder than ragdolls, so into the soapy water she let her hands go.
With clean hands, Pomni slid the tray in front of her girlfriend with a smile.
Ragatha set aside her planner, and slowly opened her mouth as she took in the food. "Oh my god." She said quietly. "This... this actually looks amazing, Pom!"
The Jester sat herself across from the ragdoll, raising her brows. "Gee, thanks." She kept her voice flat, but she knew the quirk of her lips gave her away.
"I-I mean, that's not-" Ragatha's mouth went into a line as she stared at her. Her brain reignited, and the line wriggled into a nervous grin. "The last time you made eggs for me, part of the shells were still in them, remember?"
She snapped her fingers. "Been practicing. I now know three ways to make eggs. Scrambled, over easy and with shells."
The doll covered her face with a snort. "Mhm." She replied, picking up her fork and cutting into the soggy biscuit with the side of it with a smile. "I knew I was dating a catch, but you just keep getting better and better, hon."
Pomni grinned, feeling just the tiniest bit of that pleasant kind of heat hit her face. "Thanks. I mean, gotta keep myself busy while you're at work, right?"
Ragatha rolled her free wrist. "Oh, yes. Gosh, never thought I'd be the breadwinner of a relationship. I always pictured it being more of a 50/50 split."
The jester tilted her head at that, cutting into her egg and letting the steam from release from the yolk. "Same, actually. Well, that's your fault for cornering the job market. You've left me no choice but to become a housewife."
Her girlfriend clicked her tongue. "Y'know, I hardly see you in my office these days... I miss your visits, Pom." She said, leaning forward. "D'you just stay here all day?" Ragatha asked, her voice glum.
Pomni put her forked egg back down onto her plate. "No, no! I usually head over, more often than not! It's just, I mean you're so busy. Every time I would go try and see you, I kind of felt like I was in a queue line."
Ragatha nodded, letting her gaze wonder. "Yeah, that was Kinger's idea. The ticket system has helped." She leaned up with a smile. "Actually, it's a funny story, but-"
She raised her fork up at her girlfriend, silencing her. Ragatha stared at the pronged pointer with a bemused expression. "Hey, it's your day off, remember? No work talk."
"Oh." Ragatha said softly, picking her own fork back up. "Right, um... What else have you been cooking, besides eggs?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
Pomni grimaced. "Ehhh, actually just eggs, really."
Ragatha stared across the table with a quirked brow. "Just eggs? That's it?"
The Jester scoffed, rolling her head to the side. "Hey! They're harder than you think! You have to keep such an eye on them, or they go to shit like that!" She snapped her fingers.
Her girlfriend just nodded, rubbing her chin. "That's true... Well, hey, hard work pays off. Good work, hon." She said, putting her chin into her hand and staring at her across the table.
The light heat that had been still present on her cheeks slowly spread down to her collarbone. God, why did she have to look at her like that. "Ahh, hah... thanks." Pomni responded very smartly, staring down at her plate as she found the eggs and bacon on it to be suddenly endlessly fascinating.
"Smart, handsome and a master of the only three ways to cook an egg." Ragatha mused from across the table, twirling a piece of sausage around on the end of her fork. "How has no one tried to put a ring on that finger yet?"
Pomni very quickly forked a piece of egg into her mouth she didn't have to respond to that, and- "Awof, oaf, hawww..." She spat out the scalding piece of egg out onto her plate.
The sudden burst of giggles from across the table were not helping the burning both in and outside of her cheeks.
"S-Sorry, you're okay, right? That... didn't burn you?" She fought through a fit of giggles, flapping her hand.
"I'm just peachy," she mumbled, sticking another piece of scrambled egg in her mouth to look brave. "See?" She motioned at herself.
"Oh, oh yes." Ragatha agreed breezily, a squiggly smile still taking up most of her face. "Very peachy. You're even the color of a peach, too. Funny!"
Pomni did not find that funny. She expressed this by, while keeping her eyes firmly locked onto Ragatha's, forking a massive piece of bacon and folding it into her mouth. "Mmmf amm peamby nmow?" A spray of half chewed bacon tumbled from her lips, and Ragatha promptly lost her shit.
Pomni had to quickly chug her orange juice to swallow her food, lest her proclivities towards joining in make her choke on the ball of bacon and egg. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve as she stared over her wrist at the shaking ragdoll. The laughs had reached a point where they were silent. Just shuddering, quiet squirms in her chair.
"You've hardly touched your food, Ragatha." Pomni said calmly.
Ragatha reared back and banged her knee on the table hard, and that was last calm thing Pomni said before she cracked like an egg. She lurched forward, blowing an involuntary raspberry as all the oxygen in her lungs flew out like helium escaping a balloon. Then, back in her chair she went as sharp gasps turned into giggles, which turned into full blown laughter, which subsequently became silent, pained convulsions as the cackles consumed her.
She and her girlfriend could only stare at each other helplessly in that strange mixture of agony and mirth as only the strongest form of laughter could cause. Pomni couldn't breath, and if she couldn't breath, that meant...
Pomni looked up with a thousand yard stare as Ragatha's hair noodles started to gently lift up, sticking straight into the air like the arms of a dozen or so of Pomni's biggest fans. It was too much for Pomni, who had to turn her seat a hundred and eighty degrees just to try and get control of herself.
Incredibly, the kitchen sink inspired no such mirth from her, so eventually she managed to calm herself. Eventually.
She turned the chair back around, still wearing a half smile, half egg-eating grin that reached just one of her eyes. Pomni needed to keep her head down and not look at her girlfriend, lest she break again.
"How's the food?" Pomni asked, gently moving a half chewed piece of bacon to one side of her plate.
She heard the sound of a fork scraping against porcelain across the table. "Good, good." Ragatha replied. Pomni could see the wide smile in her voice clear as day in her mind's eye.
"Mhm." The Jester replied, as sage and eloquent as ever. She forked a piece of now lukewarm egg into her mouth and chewed it slowly. "Have a big day planned for us." She said after swallowing.
"Oh?" Her girlfriend responded quickly. "Like what?" Pomni glanced up for just half a second to see Ragatha looking at her under one half lidded eye, with one hand cupped under her chin. The wide smile had slipped into a smaller, different kind. It was the kind of semi-circle that made Pomni want to crawl under the table like a little gremlin and pop back up into Ragatha's lap just to kiss her.
Shit.
Pomni looked back down to her plate. It was far less attractive than Ragatha and never looked at her like that. "I'm not telling." She said simply, pushing her half finished plate of food away from her. "But, next thing on the docket isn't for another couple of hours, so..." She trailed off for a moment, picking up her plate and scooping the food into their trash can. "Free period, I guess?"
She was being laissez faire but this had been entirely intentional. Having a few hours to do whatever she wanted was often the highlights of her time off from work.
Ragatha perked up, setting her fork and knife down. "Oh, really? In that case-" She stood, clapping her hands together. "Would you mind if I popped over to the Tent reaaaaal quick, I just want to make sure everything is A-okay."
Pomni furrowed her brow. "Uh, yeah, I do mind." She put her plate in the sink, then turned around to rest her body against the counter. "No work, remember?"
Her girlfriend rubbed her wrist with her other hand, bring her shoulders up in a slow shrug. "Pom, it's not really work, it's... It'd be just for a minute, I promise!" She begged, putting her hands up in a prayer.
The Jester just shook her head. Seeing Ragatha's face fall and slip into something unreadable, she stepped forward. "It's just one day, Ragatha! One day to recharge, and you'll come back tomorrow ready for anything."
Ragatha said nothing at that. She continued to say nothing as she picked up her tray, scraped the food into the trash and finally turned to her with a smile. "Right, you're right." She said, tilting her head. "Whatever you say, Pom. D'you mind if I spent some time out on the patio reading? Can I do that?"
Pomni blinked. "Uh, yeah, of course."
The smile on her girlfriend's face grew. "Great. Just come get me whenever you're ready for the next thing on our docket." With that, turned on her heel and walked away. On the way outside, she picked up the top book on the stack on their bookshelf with out looking at it, and slipped from her view onto the patio.
Pomni bit her lip. No, she chewed it like a piece of gum as her eyes went to the closed front door, to the nearly untouched meal sitting at the top of their trash can. Shit, it was worse than she thought. She needed to ace the next part of her plan.
Measure, cut. Measure, cut. One came out a little oblong, and she side eyed it like it personally did her dirty. The punishment would be a quick and painful demise. Method of execution?
Pomni bit down, slowly chewing the cucumber slice.
Cooking had to be her biggest adversity of all time, clearly. She had always been god awful at it, and didn't particularly enjoy it either. In another time, in a place so far she couldn't imagine the distance, she had mostly subsided off cups of ramen, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the occasional take-out.
But, now with theoretically infinite time at her disposal, and someone else to cook for, she had decided to roll up her sleeves and actually bother to learn the skill.
Still... clearly, she needed to work on her egg game. Those sacks of white and yellow goop were tricky, surprisingly tricky. But, she had planned for this little snag. There was one thing in the world that no one, not even she could mess up.
Tiny, stupid little sandwiches.
Pomni carefully, gently and with the precision of a brain surgeon, spread a helping of butter onto the bottom slice of a piece of brea-
BRRRIIIIIIIIIINGGGGG
She shrieked as her feet left the air, and the knife flew out of her hands and out of sight. Ignoring the ringing landline for now, she looked up to see her butter knife jammed into the ceiling. Her finger tips just brushed the tip of the handle, and she let out a half bemused, half frustrated groan.
Pomni had always wonder if her luck was trans dimensional.
Choosing to now ignore the would be cottage murder weapon, she decided to answer the phone before Ragatha did it for her. That would be a recipe for disaster that rival even her own private cookbook.
She crossed the room and pulled the receiver off the handset, bringing it to the side of her face. "Hey."
"Hey." The voice on the other echoed with even less intonation. "Is Ragatha around?"
Pomni snorted, leaning up against the wall and tucking the phone into the crook of her neck. "Hi, Zooble. How are you?"
"Could be better." They muttered. "Let me know if you can hear this." The phone went quiet for a moment, and Pomni furrowed her brow. She could just make out the sound of muffled voices. One feminine, the other masculine. The two voices were having a screaming match. It went quiet again and Zooble's voice returned. "The Baron found out who his wife's been sleeping with."
"Oh, god." Pomni narrowed her eyes. "...Who is it?"
"It doesn't fucking matter, dude." Zooble said sharply. "I don't know what to do, and Gangle's at her wit's end, here."
"Hm." Pomni responded, craning her neck to see Ragatha looking through the window with a curious expression. Pomni just smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Her girlfriend pursed her lips and slowly returned to her book.
"Dude. We need help." The voice on the phone said. "There's about to be corpse fight and I'm not getting in the middle of it."
Pomni turned from the window, switching the receiver to the other side of her face to put as much mass between it and her girlfriend as she could. "You know if I tell you need help she's not going to leave, right? She'll be there all day and then probably all night, knowing her."
"I couldn't give less of a rat's ass about your perfect day off." Zooble fired back tersely, making Pomni pull away from the phone with a bewildered expression. "The moment this gets physical, I'm stepping out, and I'm not leaving Gangle to deal with the fall-out."
Pomni licked her lips. "C'mon." She breathed, hunching over herself. "You name it, I'll do it. Whatever, just please, please make sure this doesn't come our way. I haven't had this good of a day in a month. A-And neither has Ragatha!" She let out a nervous laugh, stepping into another room entirely. She had to fight the cord as it slowly tightened around the doorframe."Dude, we're about to go on a picnic. A picnic! You wouldn't take that from us, would you?" She asked, her voice rising.
There was nothing on the end of line, save for the very quiet sound of arguing. Eventually, her friend spoke. "You got pockets deep enough to cash this check?" Their tone was so sharp Pomni barely registered the hint of amusement.
Pomni peeked around the doorframe to see her girlfriend bringing her arms over her head in a stretch. "Think so, yeah." She said quietly, leaning back back into their reading nook. "We... have a deal then?"
There was another silence, but this one just half as long. "I'm clocking out at ten. After that, it's out of my hands."
Pomni let out a huge sigh of relief, thumping her head against the wood walls. "Oh my god, thank you. Y-Yeah, sure, I can work with that. Hey, is Kinger-" The phone clicked dead.
Pomni pulled it from the side of her face, and stared down at it with a frown. It really must have been rough over there. She hadn't heard them that pithy since before Ragatha took over. She really owed them one. With an eventual shrug, she rounded the corner and slammed her face directly into the cover of a book.
"Oh my gosh!" Ragatha spluttered, grabbing her on the shoulder as she went wheeling back, rubbing the spot where her nose should've been. "Are you okay?"
She rubbed the middle of her face, touching the painfully judgmental mark. "Nothing a kiss wouldn't make better." She said. Pomni looked up with a little, hopeful grin and dropped her hands to her waist.
"Mhmm." Ragatha responded with a tight smile and the removal of her hand from her shoulder.
Pomni's grin slipped into a frown in a heart's beat. Never taking her eyes off of Ragatha, she slowly replaced the receiver back into the handset. "Uhhh... you good?" She asked. Pomni carefully inspected her girlfriend's expression. As soon she stared zeroing in, her face changed.
"Never better!" Ragatha chirped with a smile, setting her book down on the shelf next to their phone. Pomni didn't believe that for a second. Before she could push it, Ragatha cleared her throat and motioned towards the phone. "Who called?" Pomni's next question in a long conga line of them died from a heart attack, and the rest ran back down her throat with their tails between their legs.
"Oh!" Pomni stared at the phone like it was the first time she was seeing it. "Uh, Zooble."
"Huh!" Ragatha hummed. "Y'know, I can't remember the last time they called us. Usually, if they need something, orrr just want to see us, they don't mind the walk." Her tone was light and noncommittal, and her body language open. But, something about the way her girlfriend was looking down at her right now... it made her stomach churn.
The Jester nodded quickly. "Right?" Her fingers played with the material of her slacks. Holy fuck was she bad at this.
Her girlfriend raised her brows, and gave her a very slow nod. "So, Anything... important?" She asked, tilting her head and leaning in. "Did they say anything at all?" She leaned further in. Pomni, for no reason in particular, wished she bothered to think up of a fire escape plan when they moved in.
Pomni slapped her forehead, clearing that dumb thought in an attempt to replace it with something smarter. "Oh, no, they just-" She snapped her fingers to buy time, and Ragatha watched the gesture under a half lidded eye. "Wanted to tell us, you, uh... that everything is great back at the Tent. Couple's therapy is going swimmingly, and you don't have to worry about a thing. So, yeah." Pomni punctuated her statement with a clap of her hands and a quick glance anywhere but her girlfriend's face.
So much for that.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Ragatha's smile become so tight she thought the strip of fabric might snap. "Right." Ragatha said slowly, dropping her hands. She looked away, her mouth tugging into a frown. The passing gaze swept their kitchen until it settled on something high above Pomni.
"Pomni..." She said slowly, craning her neck back. "Why is there a knife in our ceiling?"
The change of subject felt like walking in the cool rain. With a little laugh, she jerked her thumb at the handset. "Hah, phone scared me while I was making sandwiches and it just flew out of my hand." Pomni said breezily, letting her eyes fall on her girlfriends eye.
Ragatha's brow furrowed as she stared openly at her with out a word. Slowly, very slowly, her lips thinned as she brought her arms into a fold. "Huh." She said, opening her mouth and letting it hang open. She looked to the side, tilted her head, and then brought her gaze back to her. "Okay. I see." She started nodding slowly, working her jaw.
Before the silence stretched on for too long, and before Pomni could start grasping at straws over that reaction, she spoke up. "Picnic basket is almost ready! For the picnic were having! Surprise!" She announced, giving her girlfriend a wide grin and two jubilant thumbs up.
Ragatha looked past her, moving her mouth from one side of her face to the other. "I see that. Guess I'll wait for you outside, then." She turned on her heel and quietly walked back out of the house. Through the screen door, Pomni could see her standing at the foot of their stairs, quietly staring off over their picket fence.
The Jester chewed her lip, absentmindedly reaching for something. When her hand bumped up against her empty breast pocket, she felt her open mouth tug into a frown.
She had a feeling that something may have been awry when Ragatha chose to go out onto the patio, away from Pomni, to read a book. That feeling had grown into a full blown assumption when she didn't once come back in for two full hours. Then, just now, after that entire exchange, that assumption had mutated into a conclusion so grotesque she didn't even want to look at it.
But, she did. All signs pointed to something that felt like a swift punch to the gut followed by a sweep to the legs.
Her girlfriend was mad at her.
Pomni silently dragged one of their chairs to the kitchen and climbed up onto it. As soon she got this blade out of their cottage, she could finish up the basket and, over the tiny, dumb sandwiches, she could figure out what exactly she had done to deserve this. It certainly hadn't been about the eggs and she could probably rule their freshly stabbed ceiling.
Pomni grabbed the knife and tugged. It didn't budge. She quirked her brow and brought both hands around it and pulled hard. "Jesus." She mumbled, running her finger along the side of it. It had somehow been buried hilt deep into the ceiling. With one last trick up her sleeve, she gripped the knife with both hands and kicked off the chair, attempting to use all of her bodily weight to wrestle Excalibur from the wood.
The knife stayed put, the chair didn't and Pomni found herself hanging two yards above the ground in probably the dumbest position she'd put herself in yet. She gripped onto the handle of the blade tighter.
Her girlfriend's name sat just behind her lips. Right now, she'd rather just take the fall.
Making a mistake offered a fantastic way to learn and grow from one's behaviors. It was often life's greatest tool for teaching someone a lesson. The first step in this illuminating process was always the easiest, really. You just had to know where you had wronged, so you can build a map from that point to growth.
Right now, Pomni couldn't even tell which of the seven fucking seas she was in.
"So..." Pomni started and trailed off for what felt like the tenth time in the past minute. "Enjoying the weather?"
"Mhm." Ragatha responded curtly. "It's fine, I guess."
And there she was, back onto that sailboat as a storm crashed violently against the hull. In the theater of her mind, she ran to the bow and peered off into the dark, choppy waters and blackened skies. With the heavy clouds and fog that had rolled in over the black sea, she could make out no sweeping light signaling her to her safety. It didn't make any sense. These waters had never been this treacherous, and there was always some light on the horizon.
She was back on the picnic blanket, tapping her fingers together. "Hm." She nodded, looking to the side. "What have you been reading today?"
Her girlfriend continued to idly stare down at one of the cookies Pomni had baked this morning. "It's work related." Ragatha said softly, tossing the cookie aside and drawing her knees up to her chest.
Frigid, salty water filled her mouth as a wave knocked her to the deck. The wave carried her to rest against the cabin, and she looked up to see a crack of lightning briefly illuminate the tempest. She clambered to a stand and reached for a bucket. With a determined nod, she started shoveling sea water from whence it came.
Pomni licked her lips, tasting sweet crumbs rather than salty water. "Is everything all right?"
Ragatha hugged her knees closer to her chest. "I'm fine, Pom."
Another wave, bigger than the last, slammed into the starboard flank. Gales on all sides threatened to capsize her. Changing course or barreling forward, both meant continuing to brave the maelstrom, but only one offered day's break and calmer waters.
"Ragatha." Pomni reached over, putting her hand onto the other woman's shoulder. She tensed at the touch, and her next words caught in her throat. As they slid back down into her stomach, she could taste them. Bitter, accusatory. She tried again. "What's going on? Did I... do something wrong?" She asked, running a thumb over the girl's shoulder.
A wobbly smile twisted onto Ragatha's face, and she hurriedly patted Pomni on the hand. "Oh, it's nothing, hon. Just have a lot on my mind. You were saying?"
Pomni set her jaw. "You're hiding something." It wasn't a question, but an observation. She might as well dust off her old detective's cap because she was getting to the bottom of this, come hell or higher waters. "It's about the Tent, isn't it? You're worried."
Ragatha finally moved enough of her face her way that she could see more than just a blue button. She looked tired. "Of course I'm worried, Pom. Some of them see me as their savior, they rely on me, and I'm not there when I should be." She rubbed her arm, staring past the fence, over the hill at the patchwork tent. "Anything could be happening."
She gripped the wheel of her vessel and spun it, veering for a break in the clouds. They would get through this, together. This ship wouldn't sink.
Pomni folded her legs under herself and turned to face her girlfriend with her whole body. "You need time for yourself too, y'know? Just like anybody else! It's just one day out of, what, infinity? C'mon, just try and relax."
Her girlfriend just shook her head, faster and faster. "You-" The word came out sharp, and Ragatha stopped herself immediately. She had put her hand over her mouth, her eyes shining with guilt over an action not taken.
"I what, Ragatha?" Pomni asked gently. Even if the words were sharp, she would take them.
Ragatha let out a shuddering sigh, and she nearly hunched over completely. "You keep talking about my responsibilities like it's a job, Pomni." She said, opening her hands. "It's not a job. It's my life, now. I have to be there for them, because... who else is going to it?"
Pomni chewed her lip as she thought. "They have some self sufficiency, right? I don't understand."
Her girlfriend gave her a wry smile, sitting up straight. "Yeah, you wouldn't."
She leaned back like she had been slapped across the face. "Sorry?" She muttered, shaking her head. "What is that supposed to mean!?"
Ragatha squared her jaw. "You don't understand because you won't, you're not- you're not trying. You're..." Ragatha ran her hand through her hair, and again shook her head. "You're trying to distract me from my duty, but that's not going to change the fact that it's there. It's always going to be there."
Pomni threw her hands up. "I know that! I know! But, you're going to work yourself ragged like this, you need a day off-"
Ragatha stood in a flash, balling up her fists at her side. The rest of Pomni's sentence died out in her throat. "Would you please, please shut up about this 'day off'!? I'm not stupid, Pomni! I know why you wanted this."
Pomni rose to her full height to join her, splaying her hands out. "Yeah, because..." She trailed off, motioning vaguely with her hands. "Because I wanted you to not have to deal with work, for once!"
The doll threw her hands up again, spinning on her heel. "Oh my god! It's not work, and you didn't do this for me! You did this for you!"
Pomni blinked, and she felt her chest tighten up. "N... No? No. No I didn't!" She raised her voice, and started to feel her heart hammer against her chest.
"Stop lying to me, Pomni!" Ragatha shouted, gripping at her dress. "You're doing it now, and- you did it earlier, about the phone call, too. Don't deny it. I know you did, you're a terrible liar!"
She felt a flush of shame spread across her face. "I'm sorry, okay?! I just didn't want you to get stressed out over something so minor!'
"That's not why you lied! You lied because if you told me the truth, I'd have left to take care of it. You're still lying!" Ragatha huffed, her voice becoming thick. "God, you- you're doing it again."
The jester scoffed, as if Ragatha had meant that list bit for someone else. "Doing what? What are you talking about?"
Ragatha brought her mouth into a dot. "Last night, why didn't you just ask if I wanted to take today off?" She asked quietly.
Pomni's arms drop and swung to her sides. "Because I wanted to surprise you."
Ragatha gritted her teeth. "Don't. Lie to me. I know why. You didn't ask me because you knew I'd say no. Because of course I would! And, maybe, just maybe, if you had tried to convince me, I might have said yes. But, you didn't even try." Ragatha threw her hands up into the air. "Instead, you cut me out and made the decision for me. And, tomorrow, I'll have to pick up the pieces again. Just like last time."
Every word had sunk into her skin like fish hooks, peeling away her rubbery skin and slowly revealing the truth she hadn't realized she had been hiding from herself... up until the bit. Pomni licked her lips. "Wh... what last time?"
She just shook her head, running her hand over her mouth. "I didn't ask for this." She said quietly, her face contorting into a grimace.
Pomni swallowed. Her spit tasted horrible. "The day off, you mean?"
"No, Pomni- I mean, yes, but no! She brought her arms up to wildly, erratically gesture around herself. "I'm talking about the last time you cut me out of a decision, remember? When you passed over Caine's administrative privileges to me, knowing full well it couldn't be undone, with out ever asking me what I would think about it!?"
Pomni said nothing. In the silence, she could hear the faint sound of metal clattering to tile.
"There..." She started, working her jaw. "There... there wasn't any time, we-"
"Oh, come on." Ragatha shook her head, gritting her teeth. "Don't give me that horseshit." The expletive cleaved through her soul like butter. "You could've ran back, we could've talked about it. There were other choices, but it didn't matter. You made the choice for me, and I've been dealing with the consequences ever since."
Guilt hit her like a monsoon. The boat was sinking.
"I..." Pomni stared, clenching her fingers. "I'm trying to be here for you. Really-"
"No you're not!" Ragatha yelled in her face, making her flinch. "The most you do is listen and offer advice, sometimes. I've got a hundred people every day relying on me to do miracles for them, while you sit here on the sidelines, at home doing nothing! You've never actually tried to help me, Pomni! I mean, would it kill you to just, I don't know, try and actually talk to an NPC that isn't Gummigoo? Work with someone through their issues!? Jesus." She huffed, reaching up to wipe a tear that had formed in her eye.
She sniffed, shaking her head as emotion scrunched up her face. "I know you care. I know you love me. I just need you to be there for me."
Ragatha gave her one last hurt look before she stormed off into their house. A second later, their bedroom door slammed shut.
Pomni's boat finally found land. It crashed into the rocky banks of an undiscovered island and shattered into a hundred pieces. Back in the Circus, there was a crack of thunder. For the first time in a long time, it started to pour.
She slammed the door shut, and went straight for the second drawer. Pomni stuck her fingernails into the wood below, cursing under breath. "C'mon, c'mon, fuck!" She hissed, the wood slipping out of her fingers and thudding back into place. She screamed, ripping the entire drawer out and upending the whole thing. The false bottom tumbled out, and she snatched up the items that fallen with it.
Pomni panted as she crawled into the bath tub, lying down flat on her back. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." She moaned into her hands, gripping her temples hard enough to hurt. "I fucking suck." She wailed, biting down hard enough on her bottom lip to draw blood.
She spit it out into the drain, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction for getting rid of some of herself. With a loud, ugly sniff she popped the top on the carton of cigarettes and pulled one out. With shaking hands, she brought her hand over it and lit it with the lighter. She drew deeply, leaning back as simulation of smoke filled her lungs. Pomni laid her head back onto curve of the tub, and held the smoke as long as she could. She wanted it to hurt.
She got to the second cycle of blue and couldn't take it anymore. Pomni retched up smoke and bile, and coughed into her sleeve. After the hacking of her lungs passed, she laid back again, sliding down until she was a limp puddle at the bottom of the tub. "What did I do..." She muttered pathetically, putting her hands over her face.
Nothing good, that's what.
Pomni did nothing to stop the floodgates slowly creaking open in the back of her mind. It's what she deserved.
A tumor, that's all she is. That's all she ever was. To think she might have changed, yeah right. With what, the power of love? She went ahead and ruined that with the even more incredible power of just being herself.
"Jesus, I'm pathetic." Pomni stared at the cigarette as it slowly burned itself to nothing. Here she was, still being selfish. Still thinking of herself. Ragatha had been right, every damn word out of her pretty mouth.
In the silence, dampened only by the heavy raining beat down their cottage, she could hear it. Just a room over.
Tk tk tk tk tk tk.
Pomni flicked the cigarette away. She needed to fix this.
Once again, she felt like she was staring at a four dimensional being having lived her whole life in a three dimensional world. Her usually overactive mind was sparse of inspiration, save for an old, cold voice in the back of her head telling her softly, but insistently to kill herself.
She thought about talking to Ragatha. She could tell her should be there for her more. That she'd be better. Less selfish. There for her, like she should've been. But, at the end of the day, it would just be more talk. That's all she was, right? Just talk.
Pomni needed to do something, not say something.
She rolled over, staring into the endless white abyss of the porcelain tub. In the glossy, abstract reflection, a sad sack of shit stared back. "Do something." She told it.
What could she do? She didn't have the power of a god like her girlfriend. Any help she could provide back at the tent would be like a drop in the bucket.
Her reflection sneered at her. "So what?" She heard it say.
Pomni licked her lips, rolling onto her back again. She mumbled those two same words to herself, rolling them around in her mouth like a cough drop.
So what?
She sat up, putting her hand on the rim of the lid. Again, she said them. Two innocuous words. They meant nothing and everything. A fire lit in her chest, and used the black tar that had settled over her heart to goad it into a raging fire.
She stood so fast she banged her head on the rod for the curtain, but she didn't feel it. She just felt those words punching out of her mouth, she was yelling them now. In the back of her mind, she was aware that the pacing in the other room had stopped, but that wasn't important right now.
Pomni barreled out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, stopping only to kick that butter knife as hard as she could.
She couldn't bend time and space like Ragatha. She didn't have Kinger's wisdom, or Caine's creativity. Hell, she didn't even have Zooble's resolve.
Pomni tugged her boots onto her feet with snarl.
So what? She could still do something. Whatever was going down at the tent, they needed help, and she sure as shit was going to do everything in her power to offer some. Pomni didn't need a day off, she's had about fifty seven consecutive ones since she ruined Ragatha's already fucked up life.
She flew out of the front door and into the rain, breaking out into a sprint as she tore down the path.
Huge gusts of wind laden with warm, salty water slammed into her, and she felt like she was back on the boat.
This time, it was different. She didn't need a lighthouse to steer her in the right direction. This was Pomni's vessel, and she was going to steer it herself.
She made it to the tent in record time and didn't stop after that. She kicked through the heavy curtains of entrance, pushed through the fabric and stumbled out onto the other side.
The scene before her just about crumbled every inch of resolve in her body.