Chapter Text
A knock on the door.
The way it sounded—cautious, somewhat hesitant—gave Pomni an idea of who it might be.
“Yes?” she shouted as she sat up on the bed.
The door opened, and as suspected, Ragatha’s head appeared in it.
“H-hey, Pomni… I would like to, uhm… Talk with you. It’s kinda… important. Would it be okay to come in?”
There was something unusual about Ragatha’s inquiry. A little detail that most wouldn’t give another thought, but knowing Ragatha better by now, Pomni couldn’t help but notice: Ragatha had asked if it was okay to come in, but not if Pomni was willing to talk in the first place.
This small aspect made Pomni think that, whatever Ragatha had to say was, indeed, very important to her.
“Of course,” Pomni answered and shuffled a little to the head of her bed, making room for Ragatha.
But instead of accepting her unspoken offer, Ragatha chose to stand. Directly in front of Pomni, avoiding eye contact and with her arms crossed in front of her body, a shy pose that Pomni had noticed frequently on her lately.
“So… it’s… about the strange game from Caine, from a month ago… The weird lucky wheel one?”
“I remember,” Pomni gave back.
She remembered well, because it had been so strange, so… off-putting somehow, with no further explanation. Caine had announced that he was finally willing to allow one single NPC in the circus, to “strengthen their bonds”, “create new, enticing dynamics!!” and “keep the audience entertained”. This had given Pomni hope for Gummigoo to be restored both in physics and memory, but instead Caine conjured up a giant colorful wheel with icons of all of them on it, saying that he would now determine two lucky winners who would introduce said NPC. The slices on the wheel lit up erratically, ultimately landing on Pomni and Ragatha. Applause, confetti, congratulations—then, Caine was gone. Leaving the group by itself, confused. Nothing else followed. No NPC, no assignment for Pomni and Ragatha on what to do, and no secret script on how to introduce the NPC, or who they even were.
The next day, when they asked Caine about it, he simply ignored them. Completely. He wasn’t even cryptic about it. The day after that, too. So they had stopped asking.
It seemed that it had been another one of his malfunctions.
Though, eventually, Pomni noticed that something had changed. It was hard to pinpoint… It was almost like a shift in the air between Ragatha and her. Maybe they were both still on the edge because of the unfulfilled assignment. Maybe they were both afraid, expecting that the other person had some secret instructions. Maybe it was simply due to personal issues that Ragatha was experiencing, or possibly even those affecting Pomni? She couldn’t tell. But she thought she saw Ragatha staring at Pomni sometimes, wanting to be closer to her more often, while also trying to maintain a slight distance. Was such behavior even possible, or just a fabrication of Pomni’s imagination?
No, but even now, with Ragatha standing before her, something felt… different. It felt as if Ragatha’s placement was off. As if she should rather sit next to Pomni, close to her, with their bodies touching. What a strange feeling. Exciting. But also a little unnerving.
“Well… how… how do I say this, uhm…” Ragatha continued, bringing Pomni back to their current dialogue. “So… no, wait, uhhh— let me start again. You p-probably noticed that I was different lately—?”
“Oh thank God that wasn’t just in my head,” Pomni blurted out, her heart talking before she could think.
This caused Ragatha to look at her in surprise and then chuckle apologetically.
“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you, or… I’m sorry. I was just… confused.”
Pomni wanted to answer that she had been confused, too, but she noticed in Ragatha’s gaze that her confused and Pomni’s confused seemed to be rather different. So she said nothing and let the woman gather her thoughts and words instead.
“It… it took me a while to… grasp the situation.”
“Oh, so you figured out what this all was about?” Pomni asked, curiously.
Ragatha lifted one hand to brush nervously through her thick strands of hair, revealing more of her body in the process.
Pomni looked closer. Had she… had she always been a little chubby?
“I… I pretty much figured it out from the beginning, to… uh, to be frank. I just… couldn’t deal with it very well. And didn’t know what to think about it.”
Pomni looked her in the eye again, slightly shaking her head as if there were bugs on it, to get rid of her distracting thoughts.
“Oh… so… so you always knew what all that had been about…?”
Ragatha nodded. Then she said the unthinkable, which could potentially, drastically, change everything in the circus from now on out. “I think… I think I’m pregnant. With…. with your baby.”