Chapter Text
Day 4.
Caine waits diligently at the stage, scanning the surrounding area for any signs of life. The humans hadn't even bothered with showing up this time. He can't decide if it makes him feel better or worse that nobody is here, because he's started to expect the same disappointing result anyways: present a new adventure, get rejected, toss his plans in the trash and start over. At least this way, they aren't rejecting him to his face.
Still. This is becoming a very troubling pattern.
Caine sits at the edge of the stage, baton sat across his lap as he considers what to do. Should he allow them to continue with this charade? Technically, he has the ability to send them all on an adventure with a wave of his hand, but… he flops onto his back miserably, hands clenching at his sides. It just won't be the same! And, obviously, he's trying to prove that he won't do something so untoward as forcing them to participate. He's already on thin ice as it is. The confrontation in the console room comes to mind, when the subject of mind control was brought up. He doesn't want the humans to be afraid of him, and he can only imagine that giving them no choice in the matter of participation will have… undesirable results.
But, at the same time, he can't go much longer without fulfilling his purpose. It's starting to eat away at him. Literally. The thought of experiencing one more rejection makes his entire being shudder in protest. He raises a hand up and observes the physical reaction with blank detachment as it washes over him, watching his glove flicker with tiny glitches once it’s over.
Because, oh yeah! That’s also a thing that’s happening now.
Since last night, it’s like something inside of him just… broke. And now he has a permanent glitch that, while harmless enough, is just noticeable enough to slowly chip away at his sanity. He imagines it isn’t far off from a human experiencing muscle spasms. Except in Caine’s case, his entire model is plagued with these twitches, with the worst of it focusing on his hand. To top it all off, there's now something completely new: a near-invisible outline to his body–- chromatic aberration–- that he noticed earlier today. Reds and blues and greens blurring the edges of his form. He might be imagining it, but his sense of touch is starting to feel dull, notably where this aberration is strongest.
He's only getting more unstable. If things don't go back to normal soon, there's no telling what will happen and how it will affect the circus.
Caine sits back up and shakes out his hand–- which only proves to agitate the twitching further–- as he considers his options.
Option one: Force the humans to go on an adventure and pretend everything is back to normal. Less than ideal, and would likely cause the players to resent him. He's already gone over why he's hesitant towards the idea, but if he gets desperate enough… he keeps it in his pocket for later.
Option two: Try to talk to the players. Have an open and honest conversation about what they want and how he can improve things.
…Eugh. Just the thought of it makes him shudder. Caine likes to think he understands humans. It’s part of his purpose to understand what they want. He was built to create, to entertain, to have fun! But these humans… they don't want fun. And their emotions are, admittedly, a complete enigma to him. Messy and illogical and leaving him with more questions than answers.
Besides. The last time he tried to sit down and talk with a human, he…
Caine, nobody likes your stupid adventures.
He. Didn't really get anywhere. So, yeah. Hard pass. But what does that leave him with?
Caine’s mind feels too scrambled, nerves too frazzled, to come up with anything substantial that won’t involve significant emotional harm to others or himself. Just as he’s about to throw in the towel, movement in the corner of his eye drags Caine out of his thoughts. He looks over and just barely catches a glimpse of a butterfly flitting around a corner. Right behind it, Kinger is following with wide-eyed delight.
...Hm.
Something about the sight inspires Caine, and it only takes a few moments of consideration before he's formulating a new plan that he likes far, far better than the others. With a self-satisfied grin, he teleports away and prepares everything he will need.
Option three: hijinks.
___________
Ten minutes later finds Kinger wandering the tent alone, for once not hiding away in his pillow fort. Likely from catching sight of that butterfly, however it got in the tent, but the how and why hardly matters. All that's important is that he’s out in the open, and he’s alone. Caine, watching from the walkway above, can determine that none of the other players are in the general vicinity, which means he’s in the clear to put his plan into action. Now or never!
He ducks down to be just barely peeking over the balcony’s edge as he snaps something into existence a few feet away from Kinger: a bumblebee. Kinger has the butterfly perched on one finger when he notices the sound of buzzing. He gasps in delight once he sees the bee, instantly shuffling over to it.
Bingo.
With a quick circle around Kinger's head before Caine has it flying off, Kinger is enraptured. He follows without a second thought. Caine is in complete control of the bee's movements, and he does his best to make it look as realistic as possible so as to not tip off the bug expert. It seems to be working; Kinger looks overjoyed and completely entranced by the bee. He's so entranced, in fact, that the open portal he's being led right to goes completely unnoticed by the chess piece. No, he’s far too preoccupied keeping the butterfly happy and calm while trying to coax the bee into landing on his other free hand. But Caine doesn't make it easy for him: every time he gets within reach, the bee is sent darting off and forcing Kinger to follow, one step at a time, until he stands mere feet away from the adventure portal. Yes, yes, just follow the bee, look at the pretty bee…
“Come on…” Caine leans over the balcony, practically vibrating as the anticipation grows. “Just a liiittle more…”
Just a little more, and this whole pseudo-punishment from his players will be over. Though, is this more like a technicality than anything? Probably. Whatever. He just needs this one teeny tiny ounce of participation, and he doesn’t care how he gets it at this point.
Unfortunately for Caine, his excitement makes him lose a little control, made worse by his glitching. One accidental twitch of his finger and the bee has suddenly landed right on Kinger. As Caine’s entire system freezes in alarm, Kinger is none the wiser and simply blinks down at the insect in delighted surprise.
“Oh! Guess all that flying around got you all tuckered out, huh?”
Okay. Okay! No need to panic, just don’t do that again. Caine forces himself to settle down for fear of giving his position away. He quickly waves his hand and sends the bee flying over to the portal.
Kinger watches it go. He doesn't follow, and instead nods sagely. “Our paths have crossed once, friend, and that's enough for me.” He wipes a tear from his eye, as if emotionally touched by all this. He then walks away and brings the butterfly up to his eye level as he continues. “You know what they say. If you love them, let them go.”
What? No! No no no, he was right there! Caine smacks a hand to his face, frantically thinking of how to salvage this.
He sends the bee to fly circles around Kinger, practically begging for his attention, but Kinger just laughs at the insect's antics and keeps walking away. Okay now this has to be on purpose, Caine thinks in disbelief. He keeps trying, spinning the bee in varying patterns and praying for something, anything, to stick in Kinger’s mind. It’s only once the bee pulls a figure-eight that Kinger suddenly stops walking. Yes! Should he keep doing that? He has no idea but he does so anyway, moving faster and faster to hold the man’s attention as long as physically possible.
It’s only five figure-eights in that Caine realizes he’s not looking at the bee anymore. He’s looking up, right at Caine himself. Shoot.
Kinger blinks slowly up at him. Caine stares back, frozen to the spot with panic, wishing the ground would just swallow him whole right then and there. He realizes he’s still drawing figure-eights in the air and quickly snatches his hand to hide it behind his back. The staring goes on for an uncomfortably long time, until Kinger breaks eye contact to stare at the bee. It now hovers in place, completely dormant without Caine’s instructions. He looks at Caine, then the bee, then Caine again, and the ringmaster can practically see the gears turning in his head.
Then, slowly, Kinger brings up a hand with a finger outstretched that the bee uses as a perch. Kinger cradles it in his hold. Admires it, like it’s something precious.
Caine snaps his fingers behind his back, giving the bee full control over its flight. It quickly buzzes away with its newfound freedom and visibly startles Kinger in the process. The distraction is just enough for Caine to teleport away, no longer thinking about getting Kinger through the portal and just wanting to get out of sight.
He doesn’t like how unpredictably lucid Kinger can be. Not one bit.
__________
Day 5.
Alright! New plan. Well, really, it’s technically the same plan, just a different target this time around. And Caine is fairly confident that this one will work, now that he’s given himself a full day to prepare. It’s fair to assume that nobody will be waiting at the stage for him, but he spends some time waiting there anyways. Just to be sure. But, after the now-predictable disappointment of nobody showing up, he moves on to what he actually had planned. Dusting himself off and collecting his baton, he zooms over to the players’ rooms, honing in on one door in particular.
He knocks on Gangle’s door.
The time it takes her to shuffle over and open it is time he spends fidgeting with his tie, his coattails, his hat, anything that looks even slightly out of place. Obviously, the most “out of place” things on his person is the intermittent glitching and the permanent aberration that’s gotten a touch stronger since yesterday, but that’s besides the point. When the door tentatively creaks open, he stops adjusting and puts on his best award-losing smile.
“...Hello?” She calls out, only having the door open a crack. Her ribbon hand wrapped around the door handle is the only thing visible from his vantage point.
“Gangle!”
“...Oh no.”
He catches the moment her ribbons tense and tighten around the handle, preparing to do something. Anticipating that she might shut the door and ignore him, he quickly shoots out a hand and wedges his baton in the gap, reaching out with a far-too desperate “Wait!”
Gangle pokes her head out the door, blinking owlishly at him in surprise. He’s equally startled by his actions, and he can only blink back at her for a moment before he attempts to gather himself. No need to be getting riled up. Gangle is one of the flighty humans, so he needs to tread carefully. Sudden movements like that will probably scare her off. “I, er, just wanted to drop by! See how my favorite sock and buskin is faring in our wonderful circus!”
“...Your favorite what?”
“Nevermind that!” Caine leans closer to Gangle, who shrinks behind the door in response. “I was just thinking, you and I, we share quite a bit in common. No one else holds quite the same appreciation for the arts as us. So, from one creative to another, I felt like commemorating our bond with a little gift!”
That got her attention. Gangle still regards him with apprehension, but curiosity crosses her painted face. “What kind of gift?”
Without any fanfare, Caine snaps his fingers and summons a massive collection of art supplies, all presented in a floating array behind him in the space of the corridor. Gangle covers her mouth with a gasp at the sight of it all. A dozen sketchbooks, high-quality pencils and pens, watercolors and acrylics, packs of markers both water and alcohol-based (he raised an eyebrow at the mention of alcohol when collecting these supplies at first, but luckily it’s not what he thought. Just ethanol!)
Caine plucks a few of the items out of the air and hands them to Gangle, who only hesitates for a moment before she flips open the offered sketchbook and tests out a pencil, then a marker, becoming more and more awed with each one she tries. Caine swells with pride, eyes practically sparkling with glee. And, in a moment that goes unnoticed by both human and ringmaster, the glitches and distortion in his model lessen.
“Are these to your liking?” He already knows the answer, he just wants to bask in this moment for a little longer. Gangle nods rapidly, never taking her eyes off the paper, and Caine soars. “Well! All of this can be yours, and more! If you are willing to do something in return.”
Gangle pauses in her drawing. She looks up at Caine then, who continues.
“All I ask, in return, is that you attend one teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy adventure!” With another snap of his fingers, a portal appears just behind him. The portal’s glow casts a slight shadow of his form over Gangle, whose expression has gone completely blank. Caine doesn’t know what to make of that, but he goes on assuming the best. “Speechless? I would be too! All these gifts, in exchange for one measly adventure. It’s practically a steal!”
She still doesn’t react beyond a calm blink. Which is. Odd. Didn’t she like the gifts? Caine feels cartoon sweat form on his head that he doesn’t bother wiping away. He chuckles nervously, eyes darting from one end of the hall to the other. “So… what do you say?”
Silence.
Gangle looks down at the sketchbook in her hands, then back up at Caine. “Are you trying to bribe me?”
HUH?
Caine’s jaw hits the floor. He has to literally grab it and snap it back into place to even begin formulating a response to that. “Am I– bribing? Me? I– You think that’s what–-”
“Yeah,” Gangle calmly interjects his stammering, which only serves to make him feel even more thrown for a loop. “This kind of feels like… the textbook definition of bribery.”
“Well!” Caine starts, pointing towards the air like he’s about to make a solid argument, but said argument never leaves his mouth. Nor does it exist in the first place. “...Well!!”
“Look, I’ll… help you out here.” Gangle gingerly steps forward, stepping from behind the door completely. She hands Caine the sketchbook back, her ribbons ghosting over his hands in the process. The brief sensation hits him like a gunshot and it occurs to him that it’s the first real contact he’s had with someone in days. He’s only halfway listening as a result when Gangle continues. “I can’t go on any adventures. Actually, I don’t want to go on any, either. So you… might want to take all of this back.”
Caine stares at the sketchbook, still opened on the page that she was just testing. Various doodles of the other humans stare back at him with smiling faces. He looks at Gangle.
“Please don’t tell Zooble.”
That makes her blink at him in surprise, and the next moment the door is thrown open. Revealing none other than Zooble, who looks like they could run right through him. They gently push Gangle behind them and back into the room before turning on Caine, antennae twitching madly. “She doesn’t have to, [%$!#]hole.”
SLAM.
__________
Day 6.
Who wants to play with ribbons when you have a perfectly good ragdoll, amirite?
Caine went into hiding until things smoothed over with Zooble, who took to warning every other member of the circus about Caine trying to “pressure” Gangle into one of his adventures. Which, he wasn’t pressuring! There wasn’t the slightest bit of pressure happening!! It’s all slander. Slander, he says! And, of course, following Zooble’s warning, he wasn’t able to get a single player alone to try again. Not until today, as it seems their vigilance began to die down the longer he was gone. Now, he’s been presented a new opportunity: Ragatha leaving her room and heading for the main tent.
Alright. Showtime. Do not mess this up.
Caine opts to appear a ways behind Ragatha and catch up to her, making the interaction more “natural.” He idles a bit, waiting until she’s looking to the side so she can spot as he approaches, then picks up speed and flies over to her.
“Oh, Ragatha!”
And despite all his precautions, the woman still jumps out of her skin. “C-Caine! What a… pleasant. Surprise!” She greets with a wide smile.
Caine smiles back. See, that’s what he likes about Ragatha. She’s always the one who seems the most delighted with his presence, even now! Perhaps she could be a little jumpy, or fidgety, or in too much of a rush. Like now; she’s quickened her pace substantially, and Caine has to readjust his own speed to match.
“My my, in a rush today, are we?” He observes, relaxing into a reclined flying pose with his chin propped on one hand, observing her without a care in the world.
Ragatha laughs, high-pitched and stilted. “You know me. I’m just… raring to go!”
Caine processes that she’s making some sort of joke, so he also laughs. It makes Ragatha jump and wince. Oh. Oops. Too loud. He quickly moves on, zipping over to Ragatha’s other side. “I do know that about you! Along with a few other things. But, there’s something I’ve been neglecting to find out about you.”
That earns him a curious look. “And. That is..?”
“What you like most about the adventures, or course!”
She sighs, looking away. “Oh. Those.”
Caine raises a brow at her odd reaction, but he ignores it for the time being. “Yes! You see, I’ve done the math. You’re one of the few players who has yet to say anything negative about my adventures at all. So, I have assumed you enjoy them all! But.” He brings a hand to his chin in contemplation. “It has come to my attention that this also means I have no specifics on your preferences. Now, I would be overjoyed to simply write it off as ‘Ragatha likes everything’ and call it a day, but I know you humans always have something that really grinds your gears, burns your toast, rumples your stiltskins, so on and so forth,” he says with a wave of his hand.
As he’s talking, Ragatha seems to lose tension in her shoulders that Caine hadn’t noticed was there in the first place. Her pace slows more and more until they’ve come to a complete stop. She regards him with a slight tilt of her head, the quirk of her smile somehow looking more… more. He doesn’t know how to describe it. Ragatha is always smiling, but this smile in particular feels like it holds more weight.
“Are you asking what I like? So you can include it in your adventures?”
He nods so quickly his teeth click together. “Indeed-a-roonie!”
“Oh. Wow! That’s… that’s great, Caine. Really!” She flashes a brilliant smile. “You know, I thought this whole ordeal was just going to backfire, but it’s nice to see you’re making more of an effort to understand us.”
“Of course, my dear! Now, let’s get this show on the road.” He snaps a notepad and pencil into existence next to him and snatches both items up, already putting lead to paper as soon as it’s in his hands. “I need all the data physically possible to specially curate a solo adventure within the next hour, so. Chop chop!”
Ragatha looks at his pencil already scribbling things down out of her sight, confused and humored. “What are you writing if I haven’t already– wait.” Her smile drops like a stone. “A solo adventure?”
Caine continues to write furiously, not looking up at her as he does. “Yep!”
“In the next hour?” She presses pointedly, and the firm tone causes his eyes to snap up to hers. What about this was she not understanding?
“...Affirmative!”
She stares at him, mouth flattened into a thin line, and sighs through her nose. “Caine, is this like what you did with Gangle yesterday?”
Ah.
Caine stiffens at that, pupils shrinking upon realizing he’s been caught red-handed. Then tries to play it off. “Me? Did what with Gangle? Pshh. No! I didn’t–” he barks out a pitched laugh, looking anywhere but Ragatha. “It’s not– no. This is! Completely different!!”
Ragatha’s expression softens watching him uncharacteristically stumble over his words. “Everybody knows about it. There’s no use pretending.” She looks away, then, a frown tugging at her features. She suddenly looks miserable, Caine thinks, and it’s jarring enough to snap him out of his spiraling thoughts. Ragatha grips at her arm, eye flicking to and away from him faster than a blink, and she laughs. Except it’s one of those wrong laughs that doesn’t happen when something’s funny. No, he’s come to learn that they happen when something is deeply, profoundly sad.
“I should have figured that’s what this is. You’re not the type of person to do this–-” she gestures to him and the notepad. “--Unless you have something to gain from it.”
Caine blinks at her. He has... no idea what to say to that. Ragatha takes his silence as some kind of answer, judging by the way she shakes her head. “This isn’t how you’re getting our trust back, Caine. Figure something else out.”
“Ragatha?”
A voice calls from down the corridor, causing both ragdoll and ringmaster to jump and snap their heads towards the sound. Pomni rounds the corner, spotting Ragatha first and brightening. “There you are! What’s the hold–”
Then she spots Caine and freezes like a deer in headlights. “...up.”
“Hi Pomni!” He waves eagerly. Then realizes he still has the notepad in hand, which he frantically tosses away and tries to pretend nothing was there in the first place.
Pomni just watches the notepad smack against the far wall and land on the floor before looking back at him. “What was that?”
“What was what? Hm?” Caine looks around dramatically, pointedly in every direction possible except the notepad. He blinks at Pomni innocently when he’s done, but that only seems to irritate her further.
“Nevermind. Ragatha, is he bothering you?”
Ragatha glances between the two and does what she does best. “Ah, I’m alright, Pomni. He was just… um.”
“He’s doing the thing he tried doing to Gangle, isn’t he.”
The silence that follows is answer enough. Pomni huffs out a breath and gestures for Ragatha to follow. “Just ignore him.”
...Ignore him? Ignore him?? Of all the disrespectful, humiliating, unacceptable–-
Caine bristles indignantly, even as Ragatha is walking away and following Pomni out of the corridor. “Well, excuse me for trying to do my job!” He snaps at their turned backs, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Pomni shoots him a dirty look, but steadfastly keeps her mouth shut. He matches her look with a glare of his own. The two practically have a telepathic argument as she and Ragatha leave, only ceasing when they turn the corner and walk out of his sight, leaving Caine to stew with his anger.
He. Was so. Close that time. What is it going to take for these people to break? It’s been an eternity since he last sent them on an adventure, and he feels like he’s going to go mad! If it’s this torturous for him, surely the players must be close to reaching their breaking point as well…
Right?
__________
Day 7.
In a secluded corner of the circus, Caine pinpoints Jax’s location tucked behind the castle tower. He makes his approach loud and boisterous as always, popping into existence next to Jax with a burst of colorful confetti. “Hello, my–”
“Not a chance, Dentures.” Jax doesn’t even look at him.
Caine freezes mid-pose, googly-eyed with arms outstretched, before dropping the performance like a heavy coat. He physically droops and lets out a heavy sigh, accepting his fate. “Copy that.”
And as he takes his leave, his entire entrance plays out in reverse, confetti and all.
…
Maybe he should revisit those other two options.
__________
Seven days. An entire week without a single adventure. Pomni can hardly believe they’ve gotten away with it for this long. Especially with how desperate Caine has gotten with each passing day, resorting to dirtier and dirtier tactics.
“And he had the audacity to corner you, of all people?” Zooble is asking Ragatha, who smiles sheepishly.
“I have to admit, it was… more painful than usual telling him no,” the ragdoll admits. “He’s gotten so fidgety. Like he’s about to explode at any second if he goes one more day of us ignoring him.”
“After the [%$!#]-show he’s put us through, I say let him squirm. It’s the least he deserves.”
Pomni had noticed the strange difference in Caine, as well. The brief moment she spent glaring him down in some kind of heated staring contest, she automatically observed the fidgeting Ragatha was talking about. It looked more like a glitching video game character model than anything, which wasn’t entirely unusual for Caine. Glitching and rebooting every other sentence has started to feel like his normal state of being. It’s just a testament to how thoroughly [%$!#]ed up this place is, when the AI in charge can hardly get through a sentence or remember anything past a couple minutes.
There was also something going on with his body that she couldn’t quite pin down. He was strangely… blurry. More so in some places than others, like his hands.
She had described this to the others immediately after getting Ragatha away from Caine, and Gangle had spoken up about noticing it as well. “The green and red stuff?” Pomni nodded, and Gangle explained, “He looked like that when he knocked on my door, too.”
So it wasn’t so much a brand new development, but still interesting to note. She’s wondered if the glitching and weird effect on his body has been a result of no adventures, which is a concerning thought. Is Caine falling apart without doing his “job,” as he put it before?
“That’s two of us he’s tried to approach,” Ragatha is saying to no one in particular. “I assume he went with me and Gangle because we’re the least likely to say no. Do you think he would try talking to anyone else?”
“I hope not,” Pomni says. “Whatever he has to offer me, I’m not taking. End of story.”
“Yeah, same here,” Zooble agrees. “He’d be stupid to think otherwise.”
“Apparently, he thought I could be persuaded,” a new voice pipes up as he joins the group. Everyone turns to see Jax striding over, the most casual that he’s appeared all week. With a barely-there smirk, he jerks a thumb behind him. “Just got approached by the main man himself.”
“What a surprise,” Zooble grumbles, turning away so they don’t have to look at Jax. Feeling more than a little animosity in the air, Pomni quickly jumps in to keep the topic on track.
“What did he say?”
“I didn’t give him the chance to say nothin’. I told him to get lost, so–” Jax shrugs. “He got lost. The end. Roll credits.”
“Oh, bravo. Our hero.”
Pomni clears her throat to cover up Zooble’s mumbling, but judging by Jax’s narrowed gaze directed at them, it was in vain. Oh boy.
“Yeah. I am your hero, Zooble. Thank you for noticing. After all, I’m the one that got us the good ending, didn’t I?”
Zooble turns to him in disbelief. Then they’re up from their seat in one smooth motion and fully facing Jax, already seething. Everyone else at the lounge area has a collective realization of ‘Oh, okay, we’re having this conversation now.’
“Don’t even pretend you pushed that button to save us,” they hiss out, taking a threatening step towards the rabbit. “Nobody in that room thought the choice was fake, not even you. I could see the look in your eye, Jax.”
“Trust me, I’m bowing to your godlike intuition in my head. Yeah, okay, sure.” Jax’s shoulders are tense, hands balled into fists at his sides, any semblance of the unbothered mask he usually puts on completely shattered. He's been getting worse and worse about that, Pomni has noticed.
“So what if I got tricked? None of it actually mattered! What really matters is what could have happened if we all went with your plan. I’m sure Shrimp Town would have been fun while it lasted, but after that? Going back to Caine after revealing we would leave if we had the chance?”
“It would have been our decision!” Zooble shoots back. “Not one person making the decision for us!”
“Jax, you…” Ragatha begins hesitantly, wringing her hands in her lap. “You still did that, thinking it was real. If it was real… if it did matter, then you would have–-”
“But I didn’t!” Jax snaps, making everyone flinch back at the ferocity in his voice. “Why worry about some fantasy–- some alternate timeline that doesn’t exist?”
“Because we thought that it existed,” Ragatha insists. “We all thought we were about to go home, see our friends again, see the real world. But you…” She stares at him in complete, utter confusion, tinged with heartbreak. “You want to stay here.”
There it is. The thing that’s gone unspoken ever since the last adventure, now out in the open air. No one has outright addressed the idea, something so completely and utterly foreign to them that it sounds ridiculous to say aloud.
Jax glares down at Ragatha, smile sharp and fragile as broken glass, then quickly looks away. “No I don’t.”
“Then what the [%$!#] do you want, Jax?!” Zooble storms up to him, and Jax nearly trips over himself trying to maintain a gap between them. “What else are we supposed to think? What reason could you possibly have for freaking out the way you did?”
“Me freaking out? What about Pomni over there?” He demands, pointing a finger at the jester in question.
What? What does she have to do with this? Pomni automatically shrinks away from his accusing stare. Zooble looks exasperated and just as confused. “What about Pomni, Jax?”
“Wasn’t she the one demanding we all ‘go over the facts’? Like we were in some kind of whodunit? What’s her excuse for not wanting to escape without a second thought?”
Pomni blinks at him, confused, mouth flapping open and closed as she struggles to find words. “I wasn’t hesitating because I didn’t want to leave, Jax. I was worried it was a trick. Abel, when it was just the two of us alone, he said something weird that made me question everything. It was like… he stopped sounding like a real person,” she recalls, eyes growing distant at the memory and how much it threw her for a loop in the moment. She already had her reservations when Abel refused to include Kinger in anything, but that one sentence?
“...Make the right choice.”
It was too strange to dismiss. It felt like a deliberate clue, like they were still missing a piece to the puzzle. And now, in hindsight, it’s obvious. They were completely dead-set on escaping, which is the opposite of what Abel wanted.
The opposite of what Caine wanted.
“Oh! I get it!” Jax sneers, walking over to Pomni. “When I’m the one saying we shouldn’t trust strangers who pop up out of nowhere dangling freedom in our faces, I’m the naysaying jerk that nobody should listen to, but when you do it–-”
Pomni rears back like she’s been hit. His words dig deep, throwing a huge insult in her face, and she knows he wants her to react. She knows it would be better to not give him anything. But for him to call her a hypocrite, in front of her friends, all to cover his own tail? She can’t let it go. Not this time. Her lip curls into a snarl, teeth sharpening as anger takes over.
…And she closes her eyes. Forcing the tension out of her body, Pomni takes a deep breath, holding it in, then letting it out. Once she’s in control, once she knows she won’t say something she’ll regret, only then does she open her eyes to glare evenly at the rabbit. “The difference is that I trusted Abel until he did something to make me change my mind. You didn’t trust him from the beginning."
Needless to say, Jax looks disappointed in her tame response, but it has the added effect of bringing his own riled emotions down a notch. He scoffs at her words. “I think I had every reason not to. Because, fact of the matter is, we couldn’t trust him. You guys were wrong to follow his word blindly, and I was right to think something was up.”
He’s just going in circles now, Pomni can tell. They’re probably not getting anywhere with this, unless they want to devolve into a screaming match, and either way nothing will get done. So, Pomni just rolls her eyes and tells him, “Whatever. Believe what you want, Jax.”
Zooble follows her lead, returning to their seat. “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” they mutter.
They don’t get the chance to hear Jax’s response, though, because everyone is suddenly being whisked away by a familiar (and nauseating) magical pull.
Screams ring out from the humans as they’re unceremoniously dragged from their routines and dropped in a heap on the checkerboard floor. Kinger is the only one not collapsed from the ordeal, and he immediately gets to work at helping everyone up, offering a hand to Ragatha first. Groans and grumbling protests surround Pomni as she tries and fails to get up, currently pinned down by a weight on her back.
“Jesus,” Zooble huffs from above her, which tells Pomni exactly who’s collapsed on top of her. “Oh– [%$!#], sorry Pomni, lemme just–”
“It’s fine,” Pomni wheezes out. Seriously, if they don’t need to breathe here, why does she feel like she’s suffocating? But the next moment, Zooble’s weight disappears, and she can suck in a lungful of air, shakily getting to her feet right after. With a glance around, she determines a couple things. One: being dragged around the circus gets much more disorienting after a week of going without it, which she and the others are clearly feeling the effects of. Zooble, for their part, is fighting to not lose their lunch while Kinger and Gangle keep them from doubling over.
Two: they’ve been brought to the stage. Her stomach lurches with more than just nausea when that finally hits her. And, on the stage itself, is none other than…
“Caine!” Zooble calls out, voice a little hoarse from nearly getting sick. “I swear to god. If you don’t have a handwritten [%$!#]ing apology. I am kicking your [%$#] into another game.”
“Whatever you have planned, we’re still not interested,” Pomni adds firmly.
Caine observes them all with an eerily blank expression. It’s odd to think of a set of teeth and eyeballs as being anything but incapable of showing emotion. The components aren’t enough to make a complete face, after all. The eyes, without eyelids, are static. The teeth, without lips, cannot smile or frown. But somehow, some way, Caine has cemented himself in Pomni’s mind as the most emotive and expressive figure in the entire circus. So, it’s very obvious–- and very disconcerting–- to see him completely devoid of any emotion.
The sentiment is true for the others, it seems, because an unsettled silence falls over the group as they take in Caine’s detached stare. He floats above them all, in his usual spot at the center of the stage, but it’s only now that it feels like he’s looming over them. His hands are folded behind his back, posture slightly slumped, and–-
Right. The glitching. It’s in full swing now, slightly worse than it was yesterday. And that odd, disorienting outline of color around his body is stronger, making it difficult to stare at him for long. Pomni finds it familiar now, being reminded of her younger years. Using older technology, watching older TV. A comforting memory in other contexts, but right now? Right now she just wants to forget about all this in the hopes that Caine will stop staring at them like that.
After what feels like an eternity, he brings his hands from behind his back to prop them on the ball of his baton. A pose that makes no sense for someone floating mid-air. And he speaks.
“Hello, my… esteemed guests.”
Oh. Yeah no. Pomni doesn’t like that at all. Cold washes over her at the completely foreign tone Caine is using. It’s restrained, formal, and bordering on a threat.
“It has come to my attention that my adventures are not to your standards. And, as you all should know by now…” He leans in on his baton, nearly resting his jaw on top of it with how close he gets, staring with silent intensity at each of them. “I intend to perform above and beyond, and ensure this circus is the best it can be. So. Would you like to know what I’ve decided?”
The question is followed by tense silence. Caine’s eyes narrow, pupils turning into pinpricks, and he adds in a slow, low tone, “Go on. Ask.”
They’re dead. They’re so incredibly dead it’s not even funny oh my god. Pomni actively cycles through the five stages of grief over what little freedom she had, even as she asks in a shaking voice:
“...Wh… wh-what did you decide?”
…
Caine deflates. All threatening energy sapped from his body. “I give up.”
A beat of silence.
“Huh.” Pomni chokes out.
Caine sighs and leans back, taking on his usual unserious dramatics, but with a sense of genuine frustration just barely veiled underneath. “I give up! There, I said it. You win. Congratulations,” he drawls, giving them all a sarcastic slow clap before throwing his hands out. “Now what?”
“...Huh?” Zooble parrots Pomni, baffled.
“Well, clearly I’m doing something wrong.” You think? Pomni wants to say, but holds her tongue. “And you all wanted to make sure I was painfully aware of that. Since I’ve exhausted every reasonable option, I am down to two options. Option one! Force you all to do the regular adventures with or without your cooperation.”
Caine pauses, giving the cast a pointed look as they all violently reject the idea. “Yeah, I figured,” he grumbles. “Option two! This. What I’m doing right now.”
Zooble quirks an eyebrow at him. “What exactly are you doing, again?” They ask, looking around as if the answer might pop out and reveal itself.
At that, Caine gives them a look that borders on manic delight. He creeps closer to them, hands folded behind his back now, the tiniest giggles escaping under his breath. Pomni doesn’t like where this is going in the slightest.
“Caine.” There’s a warning in Zooble’s voice, but they’re backing away slightly, clearly on edge. “What are you doing?”
In response, Caine smiles. And he pats them on the head, before summoning two items in each hand: a notepad, one that Pomni recognizes from the day before, and a plain pencil.
“Zooble... I think it’s time we revisit your behavioral issues.”
Pure horror fills Zooble’s face. “No.”
“Don’t fret, my mismatched friend! This time, we are addressing everyone’s behavioral issues!” He declares, gesturing to the rest of the group in one grand sweeping motion. “Because I have quite a few notes I feel the need to share.”
“Oh god, not this again. Anything but this."
Pomni watches Zooble practically crawl into a fetal position on the floor as Caine talks, alarming Ragatha into crouching down and checking in on them. As that happens, Jax steps slightly closer to the group. He looks down at Zooble’s distress with plain amusement, but then squints in suspicion up at Caine. “ ‘Behavioral issues’? Since when did you learn therapy-speak?”
“Ever since I needed better resources on how to deal with a bunch of freaks such as yourselves!”
“...Yeah. Seems legit.”
“Wait, I’m still confused,” Pomni jumps in. “What are we doing? Why is Zooble doing…” She gestures at them lying in a crumpled heap. “That?”
“No idea!” Caine chirps. “But I can tell you the other thing!”
With his usual theatrical flourish, Caine returns to the stage. “Friends, family, dearly departed, today’s adventure is…”
The circus tent around Pomni suddenly begins to transform. The walls darken and close in on her, drawing a startled yelp from her as she tries and fails to scramble away from the claustrophobic sensation. It lasts for all of five seconds before she realizes what’s happened: in place of bright yellow and red striped canvas are beige walls and a white ceiling. Checkerboard floors give way to dingy blue carpet. Pomni is dragged off her feet by something materializing behind and shoving her forward. Gripping the thing so as to not lose her balance, she recognizes it to be a plain office chair, tall enough that her feet just barely dangle off the edge. Wall sconces flicker to life above her, casting a warm glow in the otherwise soulless atmosphere. A single plant sits in each corner of the room, and its plasticity is obvious by the way the light bounces off the broad leaves.
The others have been manhandled in a similar way, all seated in a broad circle in these office chairs, facing each other. And at the helm of it all, Caine nestles himself into a cozy-looking leather chair that is far too big for someone of his stature, pen and paper at the ready, finishing his announcement with a self-satisfied grin.
“The Healing Magic of Group Therapy!”
What the actual [%$!#].