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ruinationz · 6 months

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"oh no,

looks like it's coming round again;

your vengeful parasite rearing its head,

come to tear us from our high...

(or: after pomni's comically catastrophic first day, caine seeks her out to try and formally apologize to her.)

(turns out that whatever lies behind that unfinished exit door, it seems to be more important to the jester than he expected...)"

(ME? POSTING FANFICTION AFTER A MILLION YEARS?? IN THIS ECONOMY??? MORE LIKELY THAN YOU'D THINK!)

What a way to greet a new member.

Caine had done it many times before! He would make it a point that, every time another human soul had found their way into the program, to give the warmest welcome his digital heart could legally provide. He'd even get the other members to pitch in, too!

So why, of all the possible days for it to occur, did someone have to Abstract on Pomni's first?

At least it wasn't the first time (sadly) that this had happened. All it took was a snap of a finger, and into the Cellar Kaufmo went.

(Or rather, what was left of the former clown. A shame, really; Despite his lack of generating anything humorous towards the eventual dissolve of his mental state, he was a joy to have around.)

But even with a situation resolved as quickly as that...Caine still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd spoiled our new human's introduction to his realm.

He sighed. Perhaps that now everyone was retiring to their living quarters for the night, he could drop by the jester's room to give her a formal apology.

Straightening his bowtie, he cleared his throat as he outstretched a hand towards the door...

Knock, knock.

"POMNI?"

...

No reply.

It was somewhat understandable; The woman was quite skittish, especially upon her arrival. But either way, he still had to deliver his message.

So, he attempted another series of knocks on the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

"POMNI, MY DEAR! IT'S YOUR RINGMASTER, CAINE!"

...

"...ARE YOU IN THERE?"

He waited a few seconds, tapping his foot on the ground with the slightest impatience...

And once again, no reply returned to him.

Now, that was odd.

Typically, the ringleader was deeply infatuated with the odd.

But in this situation...something was deeply, disturbingly different.

And he didn't enjoy it.

Not at all.

...

...Could she, possibly, be mad at me?

...No, no, that's ridiculous! Perhaps she's just sleeping! Haha, that must be it.

...

...But...wouldn't the knock have woken her up, then...? I did it twice, after all! Precisely five times, in fact! Should I try the doorbell instead? Humans usually wake up when y-

"Lookin' for 'new stuff', Caine?"

The ringmaster exclaimed at once as he snapped out of his daze, swiveling his body, then head around to find Jax leaning on the wall opposite from him.

"OH! JAX, MY GOOD MAN!" He blurted out, drumming the fingers of his free hand on his thigh.

"DO YOU, ER...PERHAPS, KNOW THE WHEREABOUTS OF MISS POMNI? IT'S QUITE URGENT, THE...INFORMATION I MUST DELIVER!"

...

"...Hmm..."

The rabbit put a gloved finger to his chin, his rectangular pupils shifting to the side as he placed his other hand on his hip.

"Now, the last time I saw that jester..."

His cheshire cat grin spread across his face, and he narrowed his eyes into two yellow crescents as he loomed a little closer towards the ringmaster's personal bubble.

"I think she was goin' through that nice, red, shiny 'exit' door you had lying around."

...

Caine felt his eyes widen, his heart skipping a beat.

...The Exit?

That Exit?

No.

No, she couldn't have gone in there. Especially not after...

"...Y-YOU...I-I-"

"Oh, c'mon, Caine! You know she's a newbie! You can do the math here: Someone new comes into the circus, and like, obviously they wanna leave! And what d'ya know, looks like somebody happened to have made a little exit door before they joined!"

The hare straightened his posture again, looking the fidgeting Caine up and down.

"...Boy—" He paused to give a dry, derisive chuckle, "—It's really funny how that certain someone didn't know what to put on the other si-"

"WHY."

Jax's smile faded as he furrowed his brow and rapidly tapped his foot a few times, seemingly annoyed by being cut off so suddenly.

"...Hm? Got somethin' to say, pearly whites?" He smirked after a beat of silence, taking a few steps closer to the ringleader as he spoke.

"...I...I SAID..." Caine began, stumbling back as the rabbit approached him.

"WH-WHY? WHY WOULD SHE GO BACK IN THERE? SHE SHOULD ALREADY KNOW THAT...THAT IT'S UNFINISHED!-"

"Golly, Caine, I sure do wonder why!" Jax sneered, his tone laced with a sarcastic, feigned ignorance.

"I meaaan...There is the itsy-est, bitsy-est, tiiiiiiiiiiniest possibility that she might be goin' a liiiiittle..."

He stuck out his tongue through his teeth, swirling a pointer finger next to his head and mimicking the melody of a cuckoo clock.

"You know."

The rabbit snickered, clearly amused with how increasingly distressed the ringleader was becoming, as he crossed his arms and went back to leaning on the wall behind him.

"Looks like that's two clowns in a row, amiright? I mean, you should've seen her at dinner! Her face was li-"

"WHERE IS IT."

Jax frowned, putting his hands on his hips as he gave an annoyed grumble.

"The door? WOW, Mister Chatterbox! I SURE don't know!" He remarked, words dripping with sarcasm.

"I mean, it's not like you can't just- Oh, I dunno! Magically make ANYTHING and ANYONE you want appear with the snap of a finger-"

And with the snap of a finger indeed, the exit shooting up to Caine's right as he swung the door open and slammed it behind him, abandoning the conversation at once.

"God, what a weirdo."

It felt as if Caine's mind was running at lightning speeds as he darted down the long, dimmed corridor, his surroundings beginning to blur. He nearly rammed into the end of the hallway as he snatched onto the handle and yanked it sideways, almost tearing the door off its hinges as he rushed through the entrance.

...

And then, as he finally slowed to a halt, he was greeted by something unusual.

Very unusual.

From the beginning of his existence, Caine had become well accustomed to the candy-shaded, neverendingly stimulating environment that was the digital threshold of the circus. It was always a comforting, familiar sight; the constant, blaring music, the canned, virtual laughter, the sound of some sort of eternal performance of an adventure occurring around him.

But this was not something familiar.

Not at all.

As he stood in the middle of the dull, grey-and-beige-toned sea of cubicles, the taste of stale air on his tongue and the hum of the snow-colored fluorescent lights pulsating through the room...

...For the first time in his life, it felt as if he was getting a headache (or something remotely close to the sensation, considering...well, he didn't really have a head-) from the sight alone.

...

And then he heard the slightest trace of a sniffle in the distance.

He shook his head side-to-side in an effort to clear the strained feeling in his eyes, then, gripping further onto his staff, slowly drifted through the maze of tiled walls and towards the desk nearby, dipping his head downwards to look underneath it.

It was Pomni.

Well...he could tell it was her, despite the way that her hands had gripped onto her face and covered it entirely. The jester was completely motionless as she laid on her side, knees tucked tightly into her chest, the only sound produced from her bunched up form being the faintest occasional hint of a whimper.

How long, exactly, had she been here like this?

Caine couldn't allow that time span to increase any further.

If it did, then...

...

Inching ever so slightly closer to the body beneath the dust-covered desk, he flipped his staff around in his hand and, as quickly and gently as he could, prodded Pomni's side with the pointed end of it.

And she screamed.

Naturally (what else was he supposed to do, exactly?) his reaction was to scream as well, making a swirled zip about five feet into the air as he did so.

Once the noise had finally settled down between the two, a beat of silence passed before Caine slowly lowered his body to kneel on the floor in front of Pomni.

She gave a startled whine once their gazes locked with one another, her pupils reduced to a mess of frazzled, shaking scribbles as she sat herself up.

...

"...MY DEAR?" He attempted to keep his typically loud voice as low as possible as he spoke to the jester, who had now bared two rows of sharpened, gritted teeth at him in response.

"IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT?"

A strangled cry escaped from Pomni's throat, and before the ringleader had a chance to react, she immediately lunged for him from underneath the desk.

For a moment he tensed himself up, bracing his body for impact as he squeezed his eyes shut...

...

And then it fell silent.

Then a softer sound, to the side of his head, began to increase in volume.

It wasn't the deafening chorus of the remnants of an Abstracted performer's voice that he had prepared himself for, that was for sure.

Gradually popping open one eye after another, Caine slowly turned his gaze to find...

...Oh.

Well, this was very unexpected.

Pomni had wrapped both arms and legs around his chest and waist, stuffing her face into the crook of his neck (or rather...the place it would go if he had one, that is) as her shoulders shook with each sob she made into his body.

...

"...OH, DARLING..." Caine murmured, steadily relaxing as he tenderly reached to return the embrace around Pomni's trembling form.

The two remained like that on the ground for some time, the performer's half-bawling, half-wailing incoherent fragments of sentences ringing through the empty office space whilst the ringleader rubbed circles into her back, making an attempt to silently console her as he swayed the duo back and forth.

Eventually the jester's cries fell to a hush, and she finally lifted her face from his shoulder, her puffy, rubbed-raw eyes remaining downcast.

...

"...I'm sorry."

Her voice was hoarse, steeped in guilt and barely above a whisper, as she began to lean forward again with tensing shoulders.

"I'm...I'm so sorry, I-"

"DEAR, IT REALLY IS ALRIGHT. YOU HAVEN'T UPSET ME." Caine cut her off, still trying to make his voice as reassuring as he physically could.

"IF ANYTHING...I WAS WORRIED SICK ABOUT YOU."

He reached a hand out and gently placed it underneath the jester's chin, lifting her gaze from the ground beneath them.

"WHAT I REALLY WANT TO UNDERSTAND, POMNI...JUST ONE THING, THAT'S ALL I ASK OF YOU."

...

"WHY EXACTLY DID YOU COME BACK HERE, IF YOU KNEW IT WAS UNFINISHED...?"

The jester's pupils started to shift from erratic scribblings into calmer, more coherent shapes as her eyes slowly began to widen.

...

"...That...that desk..."

Her voice wavered as she spoke, and Caine allowed his gaze to focus on the rusted, cobweb-covered monitor behind the two.

"It...it's like...my brain knows what it is, b-but...it just- It just doesn't want to tell me..."

...

"...I...I can't even remember my own face, Caine." The fluorescent lights were starting to burn now, Pomni's voice breaking on the ringmaster's name as her pupils began to grow more and more scattered.

"That...that computer, i-it's all I have, and- and I need to know what it means! But I just keep hitting a- a dead end with it, and I-I can't stop until I can remember! What...what am I supposed to do if I don't...? If I- If I...can't?"

For the first time in Caine's existence, he was struggling to find a response.

He wanted to say something to her. He wanted to know what to say to her. He'd always had a way with words! It was in a ringleader's nature, after all!

But as he stared down at the jester, stared down at that miserable, heartbreaking sight before him...

...

...It felt as if whatever he was trying to say had caught inside his chest.

"...I...UNDERSTAND, THE DESIRE TO REMEMBER..."

Caine moved his hand from underneath Pomni's chin, using a thumb to wipe away the tears that began to well in her eyes again.

"BUT, DEAR...YOU COULD HAVE ASKED ME FOR SOME FORM OF ASSISTANCE, INSTEAD OF RETURNING TO THIS PLACE AND HURTING YOURSELF LIKE THIS."

...

"...What else am I supposed to do?"

He drew his hand back slightly upon hearing the desperation creeping into the jester's tone, to the point where his fingertips barely grazed the surface of her cheek.

"W-Whatever this place is...it knows something, and it's using it against me...something that I don't know." Pomni tugged on an end of her hat as she hissed through a pair of clenched teeth, which had sharpened itself once more.

"A-And...it's something you don't know either...! Y-You said, one of the few things you couldn't control our minds! Our mem- Our memories! You said you l-left this place unfinished, because you didn't know what to p-put behind it! Unless- Unless you were lying all along, what else can I do? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR ME?!"

"...No..."

The jester put a hand to her mouth, her voice dropping to a whisper as her eyes automatically filled with remorse. "...N-No, that's not..."

Her words trailed off before she fell completely silent, leaning forward until her forehead pressed to Caine's chest.

"...I'm...I'm so sorry...I- I don't- I-I didn't-"

"NO, DEAR, YOU'RE CORRECT."

...

He started to slightly fidget with his hand again once he confessed that, sucking in a breath as he attempted to gather his words together.

"...ONE OF THE FEW THINGS I DON'T HAVE CONTROL OVER ARE YOUR MINDS, YES..."

...

"...BUT, I SUPPOSE...PERHAPS AN ALTERNATIVE MEANS IS SOMETHING I COULD PROVIDE."

He flexed his fingertips, balling his hand into a fist.

"Y-YES, I AM AWARE IT WON'T BE...QUICK, THE RETURN OF YOUR MEMORIES...BUT HOWEVER LONG IT MAY BE, I'M WILLING TO BE THERE FOR YOU EVERY STEP OF THE WAY."

"...IS THAT AN AGREEABLE SUGGESTION, POMNI?"

...He decided to take how she'd begun to tighten her embrace around him again as a 'yes'.

"...WOULD IT BE BEST IF WE...LEFT THIS PLACE, DEAR?"

He felt the jester nod into his chest as he slowly reached for her arms, gently untangling her limbs from his torso once it was confirmed that she was making no resistance to the motion.

The ringleader smiled—well, attempted to, at least—as he lifted the two of them off the floor, just enough so that they both hovered a few inches from the ground.

With one arm underneath Pomni's legs and the other on her back, he contemplated for a moment on how to bring the both of them back to the Tent.

...Perhaps...the usual form of transportation isn't the best of ideas. Besides, I shouldn't allow Bubble to overindulge at a time like this, should I?

So he did just the opposite of that, the jester's head resting on his shoulder as he drifted towards the Exit and, with the slightest hesitation in closing the door, abandoned the fragmented memory of an area.

#the amazing digital circus #tadc #caine #pomni #jax #showtime #<-this is pretty pre-slash but uhhhhhhhhhhhh #ya!#gooseworx #flippy.txt

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