#pogatha | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dumbfanficsbylena · 6 months

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heres this (ragatha x pomni)

“Gather ‘round, campers, because we’ve got a long road ahead of us!” Caine nudged Zooble slightly, making as bemused a face as one could make with a pair of dentures for a head.

“See, it’s funny to me because I know what’s going on.” Rolling their eyes, Zooble made their exit stage left.

“C’mon Zooble, where ya goin’?” Jax said with a shit-eating grin and hands firmly on his hips.

“I’m not getting stuffed in another @*#*ing gloink hole. Later.”

“Sorry m’dear, this one’s not optional!” Extending his arm, Caine wrapped it around Zooble, rapidly swinging her back into place.

“Hope you don’t mind.” Caine said with a light punch to the shoulder.

“Go *#*# yourself.” Despite his words, Zooble merely crossed his arms and realized he had no say in the matter.

“Great to hear!” Letting go of Zooble, Caine shot up from the ground, cracking his knuckles. With a snap of his fingers, the tent dissolved away in a transition fitting of an early 2000s powerpoint animation. Around the cast members was a vast expanse of plastic-sheen desert. A few low-poly cacti dotted the landscape, and the skybox seemed to have a few mountains drawn onto it. Although it gave a certain illusion of a continuous landscape, Pomni was pretty sure she could see a cliff between the mountains and the ground.

Most notably, was a rounded block of a bus, sporting an exaggerated face on the front bumper. Being a shorter bus, it contained only around eight seats. Still, it was enough to comfortably fit the whole cast.

While for most of the cast this sort of vibrant teleportation is a normal Tuesday, Pomni looked around anxiously, not nearly as used to it.

“So, look. I know we’re all a little shaken up after... Ahem. Kaufmo.” At the mention of the abstracted character, Caine tugged at his shirt collar a bit, refusing to make eye contact. Likewise, the cast didn’t seem too terribly comfortable at the mention, except for Jax, who put on a veneer of apathy, and Kinger, who looked like he didn’t quite comprehend the situation.

“So I’ve decided to make it up to you by bringing back a human tradition! I- I think anyways. Far back in time, humans used to travel via large, motorized contraptions across the desert. This was largely considered to be ‘fun’ and ‘mentally stimulating’.” Caine paused after this, looking around to gauge the group’s reaction.

“So what, you’re gonna drive us around in circles all day?” Jax asked with a wave of his hand.

“No!” Looking to each other, everyone waited for the ring master to explain the plot of the adventure. When no answer was forthcoming, Ragatha spoke up.

“So-”

“YOU’RE gonna drive yourselves around in circles all day! And nobody leaves until we’ve had a nice long.... say, eight hours of continuous driving? Anyways, have fun!” With that, Caine shrunk slowly away until he was too small to see, leaving the gang around to decide what to do. After a few moments of awkward silence looking at each other, Jax was the first one to speak up.

“I vote Kinger drives.” he said with a chuckle, folding his arms. Ragatha just gave him a dirty look.

“I don’t-” Gangle said before immediately being cut off by Jax.

“C’mon guys, let me have this.” Without waiting for a response, Jax began slowly pushing Kinger towards the vehicle.

“I don’t care. Wake me up when we’re done” Zooble gave a wave of her claw. Gangle slunk after the three and Ragatha took a few tentative steps towards the bus. Stopping to turn around and look at Pomni, she saw her looking nervously around her new environment before speaking to Ragatha.

“So we’re just… driving around for eight hours? That’s it?”

“Well… Not all of Caine’s adventures are winners. We can still have fun though! C’mon, new stuff.” Ragatha held out a linen hand and offered a reassuring smile.

“O-okay.” Gently taking the offered hand, the two set off towards the bus, loading up with the rest of the cast.

The interior of the bus was simple. A nondescript driver's seat with zero indications of speed or gas, just a digital timer stuck at eight hours and a big red button labeled “start” Evidently Caine even skipped on the gas and brake pedal. There were three rows of seats behind the single driver's seat with no walkway, which ensured that anyone wanting a back seat would have to crawl over the fore seats to get there.

Zooble, with arms crossed and a brow furrowed in annoyance, had already made the trek to the furthest back seat. Gangle, who had donned their tragedy mask, sat beside zooble toward the other window. Jax sat smugly in the front seat right behind Kinger who held the driver's seat.

“Well… I suppose we can take the middle seat!” Ragatha said before flopping over the first seat to reach the middle. As Pomni followed behind, ready to jump over to Ragatha, Jax gave them both a raised eyebrow.

“What? Is… something wrong?” Pomni raised her own eyebrow at Jax.

“Oh nothing.” A smirk laced Jax’s words before he turned his attention back to Kinger, leaving Pomni to awkwardly hop over the seat to join Ragatha.

“Wow, my very own colored pencils.” With a solid grip on the wheel, Kinger slammed the start button.

“This is gonna be fun” Jax leaned forward in their seats, with everyone else anxiously waiting to see what would happen. Pomni looked down at her lap as her brain chose that moment to notice the lack of seat belts.

With a jolt, the bus started moving. Slowly at first, but picking up speed to a brisk pace. To everyone’s surprise, the bus didn’t immediately swerve off into the desert. Instead, Kinger now had one hand on the steering wheel, and was piloting it smoothly in the right lane.

“What? He just drives? There's no way he just knows how to drive.” Gesturing with open palms, Jax looked behind him to Ragatha. All Ragatha could do in response was shrug.

“Well, that was boring. Anyways I’m going to sleep.” Plopping her head on the window with a plastic clink, Zooble closed her eyes.

Jax frowned, adjusting in his seat to face the rest of the group.

“So… Road trip. Not Caine’s best work.”

“Yeeeeah. He’s been less… present lately too. Wonder if he’s busy with something.” Ragatha scratched her head as she spoke.

“You mean this isn’t normal?” Pomni ventured. After all, she had one other adventure to go off, and that one wasn’t great either.

“I mean is anything normal here? I was hoping it’d at least be funny.” Adding a sigh to his sentence, Jax flipped back around to face the front. Letting out a loud and dramatic sigh, he leaned back into his seat

“I’m sure Caine has something in mind. Despite his quirks, he’s pretty good at putting on a show!” Ragatha turned to face Pomni, holding up a patchwork hand for emphasis.

Trying to keep a positive outlook, Pomni’s expression turned to that of cautious optimism. Compared to being chased by a colossal abstract beast or seeing a character gloink��d it was a relatively tame experience.

Setting out on their eight-hour journey, the various characters passed the time. Road trip games were offered, but since the only thing they passed was an identical cactus every few minutes, hopes of that quickly died out. Eventually, even the conversation sunk to a lull. Growing bored, Pomni yawned, stretching an arm above her head. Did digital characters get tired? She didn’t feel tired, but with how bored she was, she didn’t particularly feel energized either.

Looking around the bus, everyone looked like they felt about the same as she did. Ragatha held her hands in her lap, tapping away with her rounded legs. Zooble, of course, was still asleep, having seemingly adjusted her antenna positions in her sleep. Gangle seemed to be tearing up at some unknown tragic thought. She couldn’t see Jax’s face, but heavily suspected he was bored as well, and Kinger hadn’t so much as moved an inch in the past two hours.

Typically, stimulation and mental activity was what staved off insanity in the digital world. Sat on a desert island where nothing changes, and they do the same repetitive task for eight hours? After only two of eight it seemed to be straining everyone. Zooble was probably the smartest one here, sleep would be the best thing to keep sane. Closing her eyes, Pomni shrunk into the seat, awkwardly trying to lean on the window for support.

Pomni awoke to the gentle hum of the bus motor. Rather, she awoke to what sounded like a crude sound file of an engine. Looking at the clock, it’d only been an hour since she fell asleep, and there didn’t seem to be much more going on than when she fell asleep. Deciding her sleep was cozier than the alternative of being awake, she nuzzled back up into the arm she was leaning against. Pomni began to drift off back to the land of artificial dreams.

“Wait.”

Pomni’s eyes shot open as she realized what she was leaning on. With a small yelp, she shot upright. Scrunching her face up in embarrassment, she retreated from Ragatha’s arm, scooting slightly away.

“Ah! Sorry!” Ragatha looked at her, slightly confused for a moment before catching herself.

“Its okay! I would’ve woken you up buuuuuuut you looked like you could use the sleep.” Ragatha ruffled Pomni’s hat slightly. Pomni felt her face flush under Ragatha’s smile.

“T-thanks. It was nice. I mean – the sleep that is. The sleep was nice.” Pomni covered for herself quickly, while trying and failing to not seem like an anxious mess. First widening her non-button eye, Ragatha then broke into a small chuckle, earning a slight smile from Pomni.

“Riiiiight. Say, I wonder how Kinger’s doing. He hasn’t said anything in an awfully long time.” Looking past Jax, who’d fallen asleep at some point, to Kinger, they saw the cloaked chess piece sitting stock-still in the driver’s seat. Pomni held a hand up to her chin in thought.

“Where’d he even learn to drive so... perfectly straight?” For the first time in hours, Kinger decided to respond at this very moment. Without looking behind him, he waved a hand in a vague gesture.

“I was a bus driver before I came here you know!” This statement brought odd looks from the girls. After all, nobody remembers their life before the circus, right? Ragatha wrote it off as another strange Kinger statement, but Pomni questioned it.

“You... You remember your life?” Maybe there was a clue here, she thought. Perhaps memories weren’t entirely lost? A few moments passed before Kinger slowly began turning around to face Pomni. Locking eyes, she quickly averted her gaze. Kinger held the stare for a few beats longer, before letting out an unprompted blood curdling scream.

Only taking seconds, the bus swerved off course, flinging the characters to the side and then flinging them forward as the bus stopped dramatically when hitting the side of the road. Zooble fell into pieces across the car, Gangle smashed her mask on the seat in front of her, and Jax fell face first forward into the clock. Thanks to Ragatha’s quick reaction time, Pomni only slammed into the soft doll hand in front of her.

“What the @*&# was that!?” Jax yelled, holding a hand in pain to his forehead. Pulling back slightly from the dashboard he found himself thrust into, his vision centered on the clock in front of him. It read a full eight hours remaining on the trip.

“What happened!? Why’s the clock zeroed out!?” Yelling angry, he hit the clock a few times to no avail. Zooble was yelling and complaining and asking for someone to put them back together. Ragatha obliged, but only after checking in with Pomni and Gangle.

“You @#*#ing $#*$!” Various swears and insults spilled from Jax’s mouth. Dramatically lifting the king up and out of the bus, he quite literally kicked the man to the curb.

“Jax! What are you doing? It’s your fault for having him drive!” As Ragatha stood with hands on her hips confronting Jax, Kinger’s eyes welled up like a puppy outside the bus’s closed door.

“Oh relax! Caine just said we had to drive eight hours, not that we all had to be on the bus. Besides, look at ‘em - he’s having a blast.” Sitting back down in his seat, he gestured outside the door window.

“Tell me more about your insect collection!” Somehow procuring a tea set and small table, Kinger raised his empty teacup to the cactus. Beautifully draped over the table sat a delicate pink and white checkered cloth. Pinky out, he took a loud pretend sip from the teacup. Back inside the bus, Jax snapped his fingers and looked at Gangle.

“Alright Gangle, you’re up.” Pointing to the driver's seat, Jax stared at Gangle expectantly. Looking shocked, she frowned deeply.

“W-why me?” Merely rolling his eyes Jax gestured around the rest of the bus.

“You’re the least likely to make it difficult and I’m sick of this adventure. Hop to it now.” Despite seeming like she really didn’t want the responsibility; she also really didn’t want to fight with Jax. Reluctantly, she slunk up to the front seat, easily sliding past Ragatha and Pomni with her ribbon body.

“Once more this time, gang. With feeling.” Although he was still trying his best to be funny, there was a certain edge to his voice. Somehow, Gangle ended up a worse driver. What wasn’t clear with Kinger was that the bus did not travel in a straight line of its own accord. Instead, it veered slightly on occasion. Poor weak Gangle didn’t have the strength or dexterity to pilot it straight.

While definitely embarrassed, Pomni couldn’t get her mind off how Ragatha’s soft and plush fabric felt. Finding her mind unable to stray from the thought, she kept peeking over at Ragatha. For just a moment she considered pretending to fall asleep but wrote that off as too courageous of a task...

At first Ragatha was just looking out the window. That was boring, so she turned to Pomni, only to find her staring at her shoulder. A hand over her mouth, she couldn’t help but let out a giggle.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, new stuff?” In her chest Pomni’s heart nearly burst. Embarrassment flooding her cheeks, she tried her best to be smooth.

“Uh – sand – you – wait no I meant cacti!” Had it been possible to melt in the digital world, Pomni would have discovered that. Jax, noticing what was happening, decided to insert himself into the conversation.

“C’mon, kiss already.” Of course, this earned him yet another glare from a hot-cheeked Ragatha. Reduced to a blushing mess, Pomni closed her eyes and grabbed at her hat. For fear of causing spontaneous combustion, Ragatha decided to wait for her to recover. After all, they had nothing but time.

Then she tapped on Pomni’s shoulder and was met with a confused look. About to say something, Pomni was stopped with a quiet shushing gesture. Patting her shoulder, she silently invited Pomni to rejoin her on her shoulder

Still cautious, Pomni glanced from side to side, but saw the cast members asleep. Not entirely sure she was interpreting correctly, she didn’t move. Rolling her eyes, Ragatha wrapped her arm around the girl's shoulders, pulling her closer.

Underneath her arm Pomni was stiff as a board. Although she desperately wanted to be close, the suddenness of it had her paralyzed with fear. Anxieties crept into her brain, and she feared she didn't deserve it.

As the moments passed, however, the soft caressing hand around Pomni’s shoulders eased her into it. Relaxing at first, she grew adventurous and nuzzled into Ragatha’s torso. Having felt Ragatha a few times, it wasn’t a complete surprise how she felt. Opposed to the normal blocky or smooth plastic texture of everything else in the digital world, the characters themselves had a texture reminiscent of their virtual form.

Ragatha’s, for instance, felt like a real doll. Her soft fabric skin softly rubbed against Pomni’s own and pomni’s head felt the patchwork rags of her dress. Unlike a doll, though, a soft warmth flooded through Pomni from Ragatha, reminding her subtly of what it was like to be human. Now she was leaning entirely into Ragatha. Drifting gently off to sleep, Pomni closed her eyes once more.

Eventually, she awoke again. This time it was a lot less violent. Instead of wildly swinging the bus around, Gangle had merely failed to maintain its trajectory. Jax... lost it. As opposed to Kinger, he stood towering over the fragile girl.

“#@*$ you can’t do anything right, Gangle!” It wasn’t witty like his usual demeanor, just plain mean spirited. Twitches and black digital artifacts spread across his body. Shrinking in her seat, the poor girl curled up, wrapping around herself slightly. Grabbing her by the mask, he walked to the door, dropped, and then kicked Gangle out of the bus.

“What the @*#& Jax!?” Ragatha stood up in her seat, ready to confront Jax. Her fists tightened and her eyes twitched.

Why do you have to be such a... such a @##*!? All the time!” Ragatha shouted. Given what Pomni knew of the cast so far, it seemed uncharacteristic for them to be so... enraged. Genuine vitriol laced their words.

“Oh, I’m a @*#* am I? Gee, if only I could hear what you were saying.” Jax's face was lined with a twitchy wide grin. Digital artifacts blinked in and out around their heads and faces. Pouring from Ragatha’s eyes were black sludgy tears.

“R-ragatha?” Nobody had told her exactly how abstractification worked -- Pomni was beginning to think it went something like this. Nervously glancing around, she also noticed that Gangle and Zooble had left the car at some point. In addition, the clock had been reset to eight hours, and the bus remained motionless some distance away from the single cactus that populated the landscape.

“Stay out of this pomni, I-” Stopping her in her tracks was the horrified look on Pomni’s face. Snapping her back to reality, she lifted a hesitant hand to her face. When she pulled it away, black stringy globules of matter pulled away and all at once she realized what was happening.

“I-I-I'm sorry. Everything’s gonna be okay Pomni! Don’t worry!” Though the black sludge had stopped falling they left dark trailing stains on Ragatha’s face. Forcing a smile, she reached tentatively toward Pomni.

Sudden movement didn’t help Pomni as she recoiled slightly in fear. Looking up at Ragatha’s face, Pomni saw a scared girl trying her best to keep it together. Blueish tears edged their way onto her face from her eyes. Flashes of her first day drifted into Pomni’s mind, and of Ragatha being dashed to the ground by Kaufmo’s broken mind. Fears aside, she rushed forward into Ragatha’s arms.

“P-please don’t go crazy. Please?” Ragatha’s arms wrapped tightly around Pomni, who began to burst into tears. The two girls embraced one another, laughing out of pure anxiety.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up! You’re so annoying!” The words sounded like they were ripping their way out of his throat. Standing up from his seat, the digital artifacting around Jax’s body began to intensify as sludge bubbled its way out of the edges of his mouth.

“Pomni, run!” In the digital world, weight wasn’t so much an issue, at least relative to Pomni and Ragatha. Thus, it was little issue for Ragatha to quite literally toss Pomni out of the door, where she landed on the sand-colored ground with a dull thud. Next to her was the lone cactus they’d passed a thousand times, along with Kinger. Evidently, he’d continued to have his cactus tea party.

“Oh hi, Pomni! We were just talking about you!” While the cactus remained completely immobile, Kinger joyfully waved, completely oblivious to the problem at hand. As Pomni slowly tried to stand, loud banging could be heard within the bus. Tens of eyes and various black tendrils writhed around inside the bus. Doors swung open on the side of the bus as Ragatha was tossed outside onto the ground. Just as the last time she had an encounter with the abstracted, she was a glitchy mess on the floor. Only this time, the difference was that she didn’t seem to be conscious at all.

“No no no no no no, not again!” Freezing up, Pomni saw behind Ragatha that whatever was left of Jax was now struggling to get outside of the bus, squeezing its large form through the comparatively small doors. She couldn’t grab Ragatha, not without hurting herself in the process.

“I-I-I...” Ragatha had wanted her to run, right? Maybe she would have wanted her to escape, even if she didn’t make it. What good was that though, living on in a world where she abandoned Ragatha?

“Aghh!” Then it hit her. She couldn’t touch her, but the rest of the digital world was completely unaffected by her presence. Twisting around, she yanked the pink cloth off the table, shattering bits of tea ware in the process. From there she was able to wrap it around Ragatha’s arm, and begin pulling her away from the bus, making her escape from the abstraction.

“Kinger! Run!” Where could they run though? As far as she could tell, the entire area was nothing but a single repeat of land and a road that led in a circle. Either way, Pomni ran as fast as she physically could, Kinger rushing just behind.

“Caine!? Caine!” That wouldn’t work, she tried it before. She could yell her throat out and Caine wouldn’t hear. Behind her, Pomni saw the beast bursting from the bus’s doors, tearing parts of the bus apart as skidded on to the floor. Spindly appendages pounded on the ground, quickly gaining ground over Pomni.

“Ooooookay Pomni. This is fine, this is fine! Just gotta think.” Thinking out loud to herself, she glanced from side to side. Last time Caine came, she had been in the void. Where would the void be? Without slowing down, she began running to the left, straight for the edge of the desert island.

“Kinger! Go jump off that cliff!” Without so much as a second thought or objection, Kinger rushed forward ahead of the two. Glancing backwards, he gave a heavy nod and a salute, and continued his way toward the horizon.

“Please...” Although it wasn’t necessarily difficult to carry Ragatha, it did slow her down a bit. That tiny bit was enough for the abstraction to gain fast ground on her. Only a little further now, and she and Ragatha would make it over the cliff. What was over the cliff, anyways? Would it lead to the void, or would she never return. It didn’t matter, it was the only place she could go.

She wasn’t going to make it and Pomni knew it. The edge was just barely too far. With how loud the pounding behind her was getting, she didn’t have to look to know that Jax – or what was left of him – was seconds away from reaching her.

It was a split-second decision – one she didn’t have time to think about. Stopping a few meters shy of the edge, she spun Ragatha around in a full circle before launching her straight at the cliff’s edge. The doll’s body sounded soft as she bounced across the ground. As Pomni watched her body slide just over the point of no return, a searing pain pierced her back. She didn’t even have time to scream before her world went black.

“Well, this is awkward.” Using his cane to scratch the back of his head, Caine looked away from the remaining cast members. She was alive. Glancing around erratically, she saw the whole gang gathered in a scattered group around Caine. That is, save for a certain rabbit. As soon as she laid eyes upon Ragatha, she immediately dashed towards the girl and wrapped her arms around her.

“Here I was, wanting to provide you all with a wholesome eight hours of uninterrupted featureless landscape, and it wasn’t fun.” With a roll of the eyes, he took a playful pose in the air. Nobody else seemed nearly as Jolly. Amidst the empty silent landscape, the only noises were Pomni and Gangle’s soft sobbing.

A few more quips were said, but nobody was in the mood. Caine had pushed his circus too hard and too far. Unsure of what to say, he merely returned them to the Tent. Zooble went off on her own, unusually quiet. Gangle and Kinger walked off outside to the grounds, and the two remaining girls stalked off to the dormitory hallway.

“P-please don’t go.” Pomni latched herself around the waist of Ragatha. Unable to stop herself, she’d been crying since they’d reunited. Ragatha patted the girl’s head, smiling sweetly down at her.

“I won’t go ‘til you’re good and ready for me to, sweet stuff.” One hand wrapped around Pomni’s she opened her room’s door behind her. As always, there was a pervasive fluorescent glow. The room itself, however, was reminiscent of a little girl’s room, or a doll house. Pink was the theme here, with baby pink bed sheets and white and pink striped wallpaper. It didn’t quite fit Ragatha’s personality, but it certainly fit her character. Sitting on the bed, Pomni had her head in Ragatha’s lap. Beside the bed lay her jester cap, and Ragatha slowly ran her fingers through the girl’s fluffy hair.

“I guess we’re really in this together, huh?” Her voice was soft and soothing to Pomni, who was laying still with eyes shut.

“Y-yeah” Turning her head to look up at Ragatha, her smile was tilted and awkward.

“After today... I don’t think it’s safe here.” Ragatha closed her eyes for a moment and thought, continuing to caress Pomni’s head.

“Pomni? I feel... I feel like I want to try again, to leave here with you. Will you come with me?” It took some effort to sit up in Ragatha’s lap, but their faces came close together as she waited eagerly for a response.

“Of course.” Ragatha’s soft quilted lips drifted ever closer to Pomni’s face. Distance was unbearable in that moment, as Pomni’s voice grew soft to a whisper.

“C-can… can I…” Struggling to get the words out, Ragatha answered by crossing the final distance and meeting their lips together. Although still a similar texture to the rest of her body, the lips were particularly warm and soft. Slowly they moved, as if trying to memorize the other’s lips.

Encouraged by her success, Pomni tentatively caressed Ragatha’s arm. In return Ragatha wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, running her hands along her back. After a few seconds of enjoying each other's embrace, they parted.

“We’ll be okay, sweet stuff. We’ll be okay.”

#pomni x ragatha #ragatha x pomni #jesterdoll #pogatha #the amazing digital circus #tadc pomni #tadc ragatha #tadc #fan fiction #this is so cringe but i wrote it gdi

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