Chapter Text
"I think it's a bomb."
Pomni's eyes had not left the envelope the moment it was brought into the house. The reason why she thought it could contain a bomb, or any manner of cruel prank stuffed into the unassuming confines of paper, was two fold. One, the sender. Two, who the sender spent most of his time with.
From Jax.
She didn't trust that for a goddamned second.
From across the coffee table, sequestered in a comfortable arm chair, Ragatha gave her an exasperated smile. "Hon, it's not a bomb..." She trailed off and let her gaze sink to the mail addressed to them. "Well, I'm... fairly certain it's not a bomb. Almost a hundred percent sure."
"Almost." Pomni said with a quirk of her brows. She leaned back onto the couch, letting her gaze wander around their living room.
Small ships in bottles lined the shelves, and the shelves themselves were trimmed with sailor's knots. Her eyes drifted towards the current center piece of the room: a heavy, ornate ship wheel affixed over their bookshelf/table that housed their landline, along with a few cartons of cigarettes. She let her attention settle back onto Ragatha. She fancied herself an interior decorator as of late. The nautical theme had been Pomni's idea.
Her girlfriend plucked the letter off of the table and held it up between her thumb and forefinger. "Trust me, if Jax wanted to do something like that, there would be no envelope. Probably just... a pipe bomb in our mailbox. Filled with centipedes."
Pomni leaned in with a strained smile and a spread of her arms. "What a character. Okay, but, just in case it is a bomb..." She jerked her thumb towards their screen door.
She and Ragatha stepped out of their cottage and headed down the path towards their fence, stopping halfway to it. The setting sun screamed silently at them, and they both ignored her. Ragatha held up the mail with an amused smile. "Can I open it now?"
She looked around to their nice, neat little front yard. Pomni had just spent yesterday evening tidying up the falling leaves from their tree.
"...could be an atom bomb." Pomni mused, folding her arms.
Her girlfriend laughed and ripped open the envelope. "Oh, shush." She said fondly as she freed a sheet of paper from it.
Ragatha brows rose up higher and higher the more she read. "Huh." She said, clicking her tongue. Pomni ducked under her girlfriend's arms and popped up between her and the letter.
"What's it say, what's it say?"
Before Ragatha could respond to the question, Pomni had the answer. The letter, addressed to the Ragatha and Pomni household, was extremely short.
Hey,
Come to dinner with me and EP at the restaurant you guys just made. Opening night is this Sunday, so meet us there at 7pm.
- Jax
Pomni furrowed her brow as she leaned back, resting her head against Ragatha's chest. She read the twenty seven word long letter another time, then another.
Award to the most obvious trap in the world went to... drum roll please... Jax and her weird doppelganger. She wouldn't be surprised if they would be literally walking face first into a coconut cream pie the moment they stepped through those doors. No, maybe that's where the bomb would be planted. Under their table, quietly ticking as Jax excuses himself and his lovely date for just a few seconds. Three, in fact.
3, 2, 1, boom.
Ragatha let out a hum and put her free hand on top of Pomni's head. Her fingers idly wriggled through her hair. "That's... nice." She said slowly. "That's nice!" She it louder this time. "A double date! Gosh, we haven't been on one of those yet."
Pomni clicked her tongue. "Yeah, guess we haven't. Hey, we could invite Gangle and Zooble out."
"Gosh, that sounds like a blast! How about call them tonight and see if they're free next weekend?"
"Next weekend..." Pomni mumbled. "What... about this weekend?"
"Well... not to speak on their behalf or anything, but, I don't think either of them would want to have dinner with Jax."
Pomni snorted. "Why would..." She trailed off as something truly horrible dawned on her.
She wriggled out of Ragatha's grasp and whirled around to face her. She looked back, her brows up and her mouth in an 'o' shape. "We're not actually going to meet them there, are we?"
Ragatha furrowed her brow and tucked the envelope and letter under her arm. "Why wouldn't we?"
An incredulous smile slithered onto Pomni's face. "Ragatha. It's Jax and my evil doppelganger inviting us to dinner." She emphasized every noun with a synchronized karate chops, like her arms were the keys of a piano playing a particularly pissed off piece. "This is so obviously some sort of trap. For what, I-I don't know, but why would we...?" She trailed off, shaking her head.
Ragatha tutted. "We were invited. It would be rude to just throw the invitation out, wouldn't it?"
Pomni put her hands up. "Oh, oh no. Oh, we wouldn't to hurt Jax's feelings, now would we?"
Despite her having her hands up, her girlfriend shot her with two finger guns. The letter slid out of her arm pit and onto the ground. She picked it back up and tucked it back under her arm. "That's right! Or Evil Pomni's feelings."
She narrowed her eyes. "Who cares? Jax is an asshole and Evil Pom-..." She trailed off, licking her lips. "My doppelganger is a..."
Ragatha waited for her to finish with her brows raised, but when Pomni just shrugged with a set expression, she let out an exasperated laugh. "Pom, it's just a date! A date in a public space, with plenty of eyes around us." She closed the distance, putting her hands on Pomni's shoulders. The envelope fell to the dirt path again, and she ignored it.
"C'mon, it'll be fun! We wanted to have a date at the restaurant anyways! Plus, don't you want to try and have some sort of relationship with Jax and Evil Pomni?"
Pomni put her hands on her girlfriend's waist. "No. Not at all. Jax tortured you for years and my doppelganger literally makes me sick."
Ragatha pouted. "Fine, I didn't wanna have to do this, but... please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"
Pomni chewed the inside of her cheek as Ragatha looked down at her with a gentle smile. At this point, she would have rather contested with an actual bomb than go on this date. Two thirds of the dark triad, Jax's Machiavellianism and her doppelganger's Psychopathy, wanted to have dinner with them. Pomni would have to check her meal for pills full of Amazing Digital Cyanide, lest she turn into a convulsing, frothing mess.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was being a mite judgmental... No, wait, she wasn't being judgmental enough, actually. The two most antagonistic members of the Circus had teamed up and formed a power couple, and now they had invited her and her girlfriend out to dinner. It would be like dining with the devil and their secretary, and she didn't know who was who when it came to Jax and her doppelganger. If anything, the fact that neither have them have had many incidents since getting together just made Pomni more nervous.
Still, at the end of the day, they couldn't do anything. Ragatha hardly ever used her powers for much of anything beyond helping people or creation, but even she had limits to her patience. If they did try something, Ragatha could return the favor eightfold.
She let out a low sigh. Damn that cherry on top.
"Hon?" Ragatha asked, concern in her voice.
Pomni blinked, bringing herself back to digital reality. "Fine," she mumbled, running her hand through her hair. "Let's dine with the devil."
Her girlfriend out an excited giggle. "Oh, gosh! I haven't been out in ages. Oh-" She dropped her hands and clapped them together with a grin. "Want to help me pick out a dress to wear?"
Her girlfriend didn't have to ask twice, and Pomni was thankful for the distraction.
2
Later that evening, Pomni couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them. A semi circle of yellow tinted tombstones and rows of white shark's teeth, floating and spinning in her mind's eye. They would drift, stretch and fade as her mind slowly rendered itself to the oblivion of sleep and, when she was on the precipice of closest thing to death that was possible in the Circus, the shark's teeth would snap down and she would jolt awake.
No matter how often she told herself that was being silly and making a mountain out of a mole hill, the teeth would not leave her.
"They're planning something." Pomni mumbled, clenching the heavy, velvety comforter over her chest. Ragatha responded with a snort, followed by long, low snore from her side of the bed. "Could be a prank, or..." She continued to muse.
Another snore, this one higher.
"Yeah, you think so?" Pomni whispered, turning her head to look at Ragatha. She had her arm over her eye and button, and, in the throes of sleep, she had kicked her comforter entirely off her.
Her girlfriend's other arm scratched under her nightgown in response, and then flopped onto Pomni's side of the bed, smacking her on the chest.
Pomni idly patted Ragatha's hand and looked across the room towards their clock.
11:57
It was possible she could be wrong, and that Jax and her doppelganger weren't leading them into a trap... But what the hell is the alternative? That Jax and the NPC named Evil Pomni want to have a nice, civil date with no ulterior motives? It was laughable. Even at their most bored, she couldn't imagine either of them turning to the other and proposing a date night. With them, of all people.
Her doppelganger in particular had been nothing but antagonistic towards her since the moment Ragatha pulled her from the databank of inactive NPCs. She spent her first fifteen minutes exercising her free will by flirting with her girlfriend and advocating for the death penalty for Evil Jax.
Afterwards, she had played at being 'buddy-buddy' with her for nearly a month. Seeking her out nearly every day, slinging an arm around her shoulder at every chance she could get and relishing in the breach in personal space. She gushed endlessly about how much she 'loved her girl's rule', and it all gave Pomni a sick feeling in her stomach. It had only stopped after she moved out of the Tent and far away from her.
God, she needed a smoke... and maybe someone who wasn't asleep she could talk to about this.
Pomni carefully picked up her girlfriend's hand between her thumb and forefinger, and moved it to rest in the tiny crack between the two of them.
Ragatha snorted once, flexed her fingers, but didn't wake. A small smile graced Pomni's lips as she snuck out of bed and into the hall. The door to their bedroom shut behind her with a soft click of the lock.
She made a beeline for the little bookshelf and snatched a fresh pack of cigarettes out of the half opened carton. As usual, before tearing into it, she examined the text and image emblazoned onto the front. In bold, red and blue letters, the pack was labeled as Pomni's Smokes. Under the text, there was a little, even more cartoonish rendition of her girlfriend. She was dual wielding thumbs up and smiling. In a textbox next to her, it read: "Please don't smoke these in the house! Love you!"
Pomni smiled and pressed her mouth against the front of the pack. "Love you too."
With that, she scooped up their rusty red landline under her arm and made her way onto the patio.
She plopped down into her favorite wicker chair and, after putting the phone in her lap, she ripped open her pack of cigarettes and plucked one out. After it went between her lips, Pomni reached under the cushion of her chair and dug out a little candy cane striped lighter. She brought it up, and lit her vice. Digital smoke flowed through her lungs, and went out of her mouth a moment later. Some of the built up tension left her body, and she turned her attention towards the landline.
Thumb, forefinger and ring finger. She could count on one hand the amount of people who were up this late and would likely take her call. The thought comforted her. Before she got stuck in this digital purgatory, the number would've been a big, fat goose egg. The kind that walked off of leaderboards.
She decided to go with the person she felt most comfortable talking to first. Pomni stuck her pinkie into the opening for '8', rotated the dial and let it reset with a little ding. The receiver went to the side of her head, and she waited.
The feeling dissipated as a voice cut through the interference like a bowie knife through greenery. "Oi, who is this?" A gruff voice asked suspiciously.
Pomni leaned back with a grin. "Take a guess."
"Shoot, Pomni?! Burnin' the midnight oil, ain'tcha? What's up?"
She and Gummigoo briefly caught up, which just amounted to asking each other how their evenings went as they had seen each other for lunch, and then Pomni brought up the real reason she had called him this late. She mentioned the letter, the invitation to dinner, and finally, her suspicions.
After she finished speaking, the other end of the line went quiet. In the quiet sea of static, she could only hear claws scratching against candied scales.
"Right. Yeah, could see how you'd be concerned n' all. Never 'ad an issue with Jax myself, but, 'sidering what you n' your girl told me 'bout 'em..." The gravely voice mused. "Evil Pomni I know less about. She's, ehh... not very social. Keeps to herself, only really talks to Evil Ragatha n' Jax."
Gummigoo hummed. "Dunno if they'd be plottin' anything. If they are, then they've been keepin' it under wraps. Otherwise, someone from my crew would've heard somethin' 'bout it."
"Hm." Pomni replied. "All right, thanks. That helps a bit... Hey, by the way, are we still on for poker Tuesday night?"
The conversation continued for another few minutes. In a lull of it, Pomni bid him a good night, he did the same and the call ended.
She scratched the side of her with the head with the phone and bit her lip as she thought. Hearing Gummigoo's voice had been comforting, at the very least. And, with knowledge that were probably no grander conspiracies at play, she felt a little more at ease about the whole thing. However, she was still suspicious. There was still a very strong possibility that this was a prank of some sorts.
Her next phone call should be to someone who kept an eye on Jax, even in times such as these.
She stuck her digit into the slot for '5' and dialed.
On the last ring, the other end of the line picked up. "Yeah?" A groggy, low voice asked quietly.
Pomni grimaced. "Oh, shit, sorry. You were asleep, weren't you?"
Zooble replied at first with long, drawn out yawn. "Was. What's up? You in the doghouse again?" They said, their voice barely above a whisper.
"No, far from it. We've got a date Sunday."
"Mhm, cool."
"A double date."
"...with who? Bazooble and the Mildenhalls?"
Pomni licked her lips. She felt like Oppenheimer. "Jax and my doppelganger."
The other end of the line was silent for a full three seconds. "Let me call you back from my room."
Before Pomni could respond, the line went dead and Pomni stared at the receiver with a frown. As she was taking another drag of her cigarette, the phone rang. She picked up the receiver and brought it to her head. "Yeah?"
"Tell me everything."
Pomni did, only leaving out that she called Gummigoo first.
Zooble was silent for a few moments. "...this is a bad idea." They eventually said, their voice fighting through interference to warn her. "I don't trust Jax as far as I wish I could throw him, and Evil Pomni is... I dunno, I can't get a read on her, but she's fucking weird. Barely says a word during art lessons, and she... stares, a lot."
Pomni moved the phone from one side of her head to the other. "Mhm, yeah, I'm with you. It's just... Ragatha really wants to go, and I already promised her I would play along."
They let out a groan. "God. Would it kill her to be mean just once in her life?"
"Maybe." Pomni said with a fond smile.
"Mhm." Zooble made a non committal sound. "You want my take? Cancel. Take the heat from Ragatha, you can handle it. Lord knows you've done worse."
She let out an exasperated laugh. "Gee, you always know exactly what to say to cheer me up, Zooble." They started to mumble an apology and Pomni cut them off. "No, no. You're right... I can't do it, though. She really wants this. Besides, what are they going to do us, beat us down in the bathroom?"
There was a brief pause, then: "What are you doing tomorrow?" Zooble asked suddenly.
Pomni blinked. "Uh, don't... know- probably spending most of it with Ragatha?" She had stashed a bottle of red wine under the bathroom sink a week prior and was planning on pulling it tomorrow evening. Spending several hours lightly buzzed and simply talking with her girlfriend was one of her favorite ways to spend time with her. Plus, usually, they fooled around afterwards.
"Why do you ask?" She said, dashing the sinister, gay thoughts from her brain.
"I've been meaning to show you something for a week and a half now. It's about Evil Pomni. About something she's been painting for a recent assignment."
"What about it?" As she asked the question, a cold sweat broke out upon her back.
"It... would be better if I just showed you. Think you can find time to sit in with the Art Club tomorrow?
With a promise to be there the following night, Pomni bade a good friend a good night for the second time, and set the receiver back into the landline with a click. She spent the next thirty minutes quietly smoking through half a pack of her cigarettes and staring out into the starry sky.
Art Club took place at 5:45. That would cut into her time with Ragatha, but she couldn't help have a need to be there. Her doppelganger was the be all end all of closed books, the kind that had a padlock and chains binding it shut. It was a book she personally didn't mind not being able to bookmark, but considering she was to have a double date with her and Jax of all people, she felt it wise to at least skim the index.
A question floated up from the dark waters that ran just below her mind. It was a question that, no matter how many cinderblocks she tied to it, it just kept coming back up like bloated corpse. She supposed that there really was no better time to finally attempt to answer it.
Just what exactly was her doppelganger's deal?
Pomni put out the butt of her eight consecutive cigarette, stood up and made her way back into her house. After she replaced the landline, she slipped back into her and Ragatha's bedroom. She stopped at the edge of the bed, narrowing her eyes in the dark towards her girlfriend. Was she sleeping, still? Pomni couldn't tell.
She got her answer a moment later when a snore poured out of her girlfriend. Pomni grinned to herself as she climbed back into bed, pulling up the sheets to her chest. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was infinite darkness. It comforted her, and with that feeling, and the resolve to start getting some answers in her mind and less questions, she let the darkness take her.
3
The next day, she had sequestered herself in the back of Gangle and Zooble's art room, and was quietly watching the former use a blackboard to teach the small class about something called a 'horizon line'. Pomni rolled her eyes as she leaned further back into her seat. At the moment, she was crammed in between two unused easels.
As usual, the process behind the creation of art mystified and confused her. She much preferred just interfacing with the finished product. Letting her gaze wander away from her black board, she scanned the room itself.
At some point, Ragatha had helped knock down the wall between these two unused bedrooms, giving the classroom plenty of space. Half finished sculptures and paintings littered the edges of the rooms. Some obviously from previous classes, others she surmised had to be personal projects. Most of the latter had thick, paint splattered sheets thrown over them. Given that these were stored in groups, rather than scattered mindlessly, Pomni had surmised that every student had a designated area.
Near the entrance, Orbsman was mumbling something under his breath as he tried and failed to draw a straight line across the large sheet of paper he had on his easel. Zooble, who Pomni now understood to be the more 'hands on' of the two teachers, left Gangle's side to help him.
To their right, the newest student of the bunch was having even more of an issue. Pomni watched her clench the pencil in her hands so hard it cracked, and she threw it down to join the growing pile of graphite and wood at her feet. She let out a string of curses Pomni hadn't heard of before, and reached up to grip at her blue colored head of hair. "Utter detritus!" She exclaimed with a roll of her r's.
As Zooble walked over, Evil Ragatha took a step back to point at her easel and the paper on it with hundreds of clumsy lines on it. "It mocks me, Zooble. Can't you hear the paper? It laughs. It laughs at my bungled attempts at... two point perspective." She spat, and then closed the distance to put her hands on opposite sides of the thick sheet of paper. "Laugh all you wish, you cannot break an already shattered spirit!" She exclaimed, shaking the paper.
Zooble put her hand on the woman's arm. "Let's take a break." They lead her over to a couple of chairs by the door and sat her down. Zooble handed her a bottle of water, and she downed the whole thing while never taking her eyes off of the crumpled paper on her easel.
There was a quiet snicker on the opposite side of the room, and Pomni's eyes slid over to see her doppelganger watching the scene unfold just like she had been.
Apparently sensing the focus on her, her counterpart turned and locked eyes with her for what had to be the third or fourth time since the beginning of the lesson. Just like last time, her smile grew into a toothy grin, and she waved. Pomni looked away for a few pointed seconds.
Unlike last time, her doppelganger was still staring at her when she looked back.
She mouthed something that made Pomni's stomach churn, and she finally turned back to her assignment.
see you sunday
Pomni unfolded and refolded her legs. 6:30 couldn't come soon enough.
Eventually, it did. The art supplies were put up, the easels were put away and the class was dismissed. The doppelgangers left together, followed closely behind by Orbsman. That left Pomni alone with the most obvious 'low key' couple in the entirety of the Circus. She stood and crossed over to the middle of the room. "This place gets nicer every time I see it."
Gangle's mark for a mouth turned into a wide smile, and she flapped her ribbon at her. "Oh, pshh. It's Zooble mostly, really. They've got an eye for interior design."
Zooble folded their arms and leaned up on one leg. "Eh, I'm just moving around the works our students make. If anything, you should be thanking yourself for being such a good teacher."
A small smattering of pink graced Gangle's mask. "It's not all me! Some our students are naturals... well, mostly Evil Pomni." She said bashfully.
"Speaking of... are you sure it's okay we show Pomni her work?" She asked, turning to Zooble. "That assignment isn't due till next Saturday..."
Zooble tilted their head. "I'm sure." They turned to Pomni. "She never keeps anything she paints."
Pomni furrowed her brow. "The hell is so special about this painting?"
Gangle turned her way. She clasped her ribbons together and leaned in. "Well, for starters, she's good. Like, crazy good. Which makes sense, considering you're..." She trailed off, waving a ribbon towards her as her smiled faded.
"More of a writer?" Pomni supplied with a bemused smirk.
"Great way to put it." Zooble said with a smile in their voice. "Also, this assignment is meant to be emotional, so you might get... something out of it." They snapped their fingers. "All right, let's get on it with it."
"Wait, what's the assignment about?" Pomni asked quickly.
"You'll see." Zooble said with a crinkle of their eyes.
With that, they and Gangle lead her towards what she had correctly presumed to be her doppelganger's area of the classroom. It was double the size of Orbsman's area when it came to volume and, unlike him, it seemed like she focused almost entirely on paintings rather than sculptures. All of the canvases were covered with some manner of sheet or covering, even the ones that were leaning up against the nearby wall.
Zooble stopped in front of the largest painting still on an easel, and wrapped a claw around the sheet covering it. "Again, This one isn't done." They said, and then stepped back as they revealed the painting.
Pomni licked her lips and took a step closer. Gangle wasn't kidding, her doppelganger could paint.
Done in a semi-abstract, rough style, she had painted a sunset shining light upon two rivers. The colors were all wrong, however. The sky was blood red, illuminated only just barely by the dark blue sun that was in the process of slipping behind a flat horizon. The landscape, although painted well, confused her. There were no landmarks, no mountains, nothing save for the two rivers. One of them, a mass of churning red and blue colors, extended from the horizon and into the foreground. The next river did the same, although this one was calm, and comprised of red and yellows.
If there was a meaning behind what she was seeing, she couldn't identify it. "What am I looking at here?" Pomni asked, turning around and jerking her thumb at the painting.
Zooble stepped forward. "We don't know what it means exactly, but it's pretty obvious what some of this represents." They said, and looked towards Gangle with raised brows.
She closed the distance, leaning forward and pressing a ribbon against the calm river. "This, we think, represents Evil Pomni. So, that would mean..." She trailed off, giving Pomni a look.
"The other river is me." Pomni said quietly. A ball of dread was slowly starting to form in her stomach like a baby star collecting cosmic dust.
"Yeah." Zooble said, planting their hands onto their hips. "Again, the meaning is unclear. But, that's not all..." They continued and leaned forward to pick up the painting. "For some reason, Evil Pomni likes to paint on the back of her canvases." With that, Zooble flipped the canvas over and held it out for Pomni to see.
Pomni squinted. Incredibly, the painting was almost entirely the same. A few errant strokes here and there, but again, nearly the same landscape, save for one detail.
In this version, half way to the foreground, the rivers merged. Red and yellow mixed with blue and more red. The effect was a completely calm stretch of dull, red liquid, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Pomni leaned back, running her hand through her hair as her brain went into overdrive. Zooble took that as a sign to replace the canvas and recover it.
She was almost afraid to ask. "What... is the assignment?"
Gangle cleared her throat. "Paint Your Pain."
She brought a hand up to work her temples and shut her eyes.
That frightened her. It was news to Pomni that her doppelganger thought of her this much, enough to paint something about her and some sort of mysterious, nebulous pain. It must've taken her hours to make, and it still wasn't finished.
Pomni opened her eyes. "Does she ever... talk about me?"
Zooble shook their head. "Up until Evil Ragatha joined the club, she was almost dead silent. Just paid attention and occasionally asked a question."
"Even now, she usually waits till after the lesson to talk with Evil Ragatha." Gangle continued.
She stared at the covered painting. Something wasn't adding up.
"Still gonna go?" Zooble asked, folding their arms.
Pomni put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "What choice do I have? Go up to Ragatha and say 'Hey babe! That date you're really excited for? Yeah, let's not. Why? Dunno, my doppelganger just gives me a bad vibe.'"
"Yeah, that... probably wouldn't go over well..." Gangle rubbed the underside of her mask. "If it makes you feel any better, Zooble and I are planning on going together."
Pomni dropped her hands to her sides. "Sunday night?"
"Yup." Zooble popped the P like an bubble that hadn't been mourned.
She inhaled and let out a big sigh. "That that does actually make feel better, thanks." As Gangle was telling her it was their pleasure, she glanced up at the cat themed clock hanging up above the white board. She clicked her tongue and turned back towards her compatriots.
Pomni clapped once, getting the attention of the both of them,. "'Kay, I really gotta get going. Thanks for everything, and- see you tomorrow!" She said, jogging out of the door and ignoring Zooble calling her the Circus' biggest homo. Pomni disagreed. Top three, maybe, but biggest? Zooble should really find a mirror and do some self reflection.
4
That evening flew by in such a miasma of filled then emptied wine glasses, drunken flirting and battles beneath sheets, she hardly had a second to think about the date the following evening.
The next morning however, no longer distracted by soft hands and freshly cleared caches, she couldn't force the quickly encroaching dinner out of her mind. She thought about it over sunny side up eggs, another conquest of hers, while drinking coffee with Ragatha.
She continued to think about it well into the afternoon. Pomni got up from the couch and quietly excused herself out to the patio while Ragatha looked up from her book with a curious expression. She needed some fresh air.
Going outside had been a mistake.
Dorsia.
Pomni let out a sigh of frustration as the distant restaurant entered her vision. Down the cobbled stones, over their picket fence and down the path, there it was. The source of her most recent ire.
It was built on the side of the path about half way to the Tent. Tall arches of white and gold stretched into the sun's annoyed light, and the rays of light bounced off them and obfuscated into the surrounding area. Red bricks covered what the frosted glass windows couldn't, and trees just like the one outside of her house were placed around the perimeter. They offered some shade and privacy as they enclosed the patio area that offered outdoor seating.
Besides her and Ragatha's cottage, it was most incredible thing her girlfriend had made. It had been somewhat of a passion project between them. A project fueled by a shared desire to have somewhere new to go out to have a date, and a silly desire to bring to life a restaurant from one of the few movies she and Ragatha had both seen and had vivid memories of. The only issue with it is that she couldn't remember exactly what it looked like. She could remember maybe three restaurants from American Psycho, and all of them felt like they could be Dorsia in her head.
Every idea for furnishing, cuisine or style she brought up Ragatha ended up yes-anding and she was now totally convinced her girlfriend actually knew what the restaurant looked like and was just messing with her. She didn't mind, the finished product ended up turning out wonderfully and, up until the day before yesterday, she had been very excited to finally eat out at it.
Now, instead of a lovely date with her girlfriend, she would be trapped with Jax and her doppelganger for an indeterminate amount of time. What had at first seemed like a light at the end of tunnel, now revealed itself to be a light hanging in front of a row of sharp teeth.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Pomni screamed and brought her hands up defensively.
Ragatha slapped her hand over her face to stifle a snort. "Sorry! Didn't mean to scare you, promise!" She said, waving away the giggles as they threatened to spill out of her mouth.
Pomni stood up straight and tried to look annoyed. "Sure you didn't."
She didn't respond at first. Instead, she tucked her fingers under her chin and turned her face towards hers. "I know that look." She said, narrowing her eyes. "You're worried about something."
Pomni just quirked her brows up and pursed her lips.
Ragatha moved her hand up to cup her cheek. "It's just a date, Pom. I know how you feel about your doppelganger, love. I have... similar feelings about Jax."
She tilted her head. "How... do you feel about that? I just don't like the guy, but he treated you horribly for years."
"That's true... but, he's been a lot nicer lately. Maybe he's... turning things around." She mused.
Pomni snorted. "Sure. Would you even forgive him if he was?"
Ragatha went silent, and Pomni once again thought about telling her about the painting, but once again she clammed up. The assignment was weird, off-putting and was related to her, but at the end of the day, it was nothing more than a puzzle piece for a picture she didn't comprehend yet. Just like her doppelganger.
Jax made sense. She had come to the conclusion that he was a sick man who liked to take that out on others, and had left the corkboard in her mind alone after that.
On the other four fingered hand, her doppelganger confused the hell out of her. Since the day they had met, she had remained an almost entirely static, repellent person. The only changes she had seen herself had been her taking up art, and her going out with Jax.
More puzzle pieces, but no clues on what they would build to. She just had to keep collecting.
"...Pom?" Her girlfriend asked.
"Sorry, just thinking." She reached up to pat her girlfriend's hand.
Her girlfriend gave her an exasperated smile. "Would it make you feel better If I promised to smite them if they messed up our date?"
Pomni pulled away to lean against the patio's railing. "You? You couldn't hurt a fly."
Ragatha raised her hands and mimed what was apparently her casting bolts of lightning from her finger tips at her. Pomni would've been confused if not for the helpful sound effect she provided with the gesture.
She put her hand to her chest. "I just got the fear of god put it into me." Shockingly, it did make Pomni feel a little bit better.
Her girlfriend pumped her arm. "Great! Have you picked out something to wear yet? The date is in two hours..." She warned, tilting her head.
Pomni pushed herself off of the railing. "Nope. Wanna help me out?"
Ragatha's smile grew. "Oh, gosh! Playing dress-up with my girlfriend!?" She put her hands onto Pomni's shoulders and started to lead her back into the house. "How could I refuse?"
She let out a little nervous laugh and suddenly felt as though she had made a massive mistake. If there ever was a constant present in her life, it was that feeling.