Chapter Text
Ragatha’s left hand gripped her opposite forearm tightly. The adventure was rough, and part of her stuffing was missing. Caine had already disappeared. She looked across the room, watching as Gangle spoke quietly with Zooble. She looked away, her eyes moving to Kinger who had already gone back to his pillow fort, he shuffled, closing a makeshift door behind him.
Pomni’s voice brought Ragatha back to the rest of the room. Standing a few feet away she was talking with Jax who put his hands behind his head. The jester rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she wasn’t really thinking about them. She caught Pomni’s eyes, who at first looked back curiously and then flickered with discomfort. Ragatha looked down at her feet, blush rising on her fabric cheeks embarrassingly.
She leaned down, gathering some of her fluff from the floor. She winced at the stinging pain that radiated from her arm and abdomen. She started to walk away, trying not to be too noticeable. She just needed to get back to her room and fix her stuffing. She heard Jax snort as she walked past, muttering something to Pomni. The jester giggled, and Ragatha felt a ping in her stomach that made her want to cry. She put her head down and walked back to her room.
Ragatha held her breath as she finally pushed into her room. Flipping a lightswitch she stumbled to her bed and sat down. She leaned down, pulling off her shoes. She flipped one over in her hand, studying the bottom as she’d done a thousand times before. Her eyes stared down at the words written on it.
“Property of Jax”
She couldn’t look away. Like a camera her vision locked, focusing in, blurring the world around her. Nothing around her was in color anymore, just the text, the letters, the individual brush strokes that still read digital in their perfect matching execution. Her blood surged in her ears. She was so angry. Jax had tackled her and written it on her shoe in the earlier days of the circus as a prank. She scrubbed for days but it remained.
A joke. A claim. An ever present reminder of her place here in the circus.
Shame was like ice water in her veins. She stared at the words in Jax’s messy handwriting.
She took a deep breath like she’d been underwater. Still staring at the words. She closed her eyes and tossed the thing away entirely as if it had burned her. She stood up from her bed. Moving into a corner of the room she crouched. Crawling beneath a table and covering her head. She sobbed, embarrassing gasped breaths she couldn’t seem to shake.
Her stuffing fell out, but she didn’t care. Nothing was real, and she was so tired of being okay.
She blanked for a moment. The tears dripping down her neck as her attention simply fixated on a point on the floor. Her breathing slowed as she stared intensely at a little texture on the floor, a slightly peculiar strand on the digital carpet. Her whole body felt far away.
She wasn’t thinking about the carpet anymore, her mind was unplugged. No fancy thoughts or introspections to be had. Just a protective shell, somewhere inside was the real Ragatha. She felt like a child hiding in her parents clothing, swallowed by the surrounding fabric.
Ragatha loved to hide.
Behind things. Inside of closets. Behind people in photographs. In conversations.
It was easier. She tended to just be annoying. Which her mother had made clear was worse than not being seen at all. But Ragatha was never good at actually closing her mouth.
Ragatha appreciated that they called her friendly and nice rather than suffocating and annoying. She was quiet, constantly tapping her foot and people watching. But when people would come talk to her she would say odd things, or lose her train of thought, or be awkward. All in the effort to seem understanding and welcoming. But it always did the opposite. So she watched people grow tired of talking to her. She knew it was because of that.
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The group had been talking about an adventure they’d gone on. Ragatha had actually had fun, and she’d won! She talked about the backstory and the challenge with the other circus members. Jax leaned forward, a sharp expression as she finished her thought.
“You really take over conversations, don't you Raggy?” Jax had said one day, a grin growing on his lips as he stared her down.
She felt all the excitement inside her leave. She closed her mouth. Jax laughed. Allowing the others to continue talking. She bit her tongue inside her mouth, and she’d surely have bled if she didn’t have stuffing. She stared into space for a while before she quietly excused herself. In her room she just collapsed. She pinned her knees to her chest, wrapping herself with a warm blanket, shuttering through sobs. She was annoying. A part of herself burned with shame.
“Why can’t I just be normal.” She whispered angrily.
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Escaping the memory, she blinked back to her body. Hiding under the table.
Tears fell down her cartoonish cheeks as her fingers twitched. Picking at the seams along her arms her vision blurred again. Half of Ragatha’s memories were gone, but she was too afraid to ask the others how much they remembered from their lives before the circus. She was terrified of being emotional or obsessive. She just wanted to be normal.
She shook her head remembering the bar. How she’d completely bared her heart to them and they all stared at her like she was insane. Her heart sank at the memory.
She was too much, somehow always not enough. No matter how much she tried.