Work Text:
ecesis:
noun. The establishment of a plant or animal in a new habitat.
Ragatha, in a Farmhouse on the Grounds
“And that’s everything I’ve finished so far,” Ragatha said. “You can visit whenever you want. Or call me on my landline!” She pitched her thumb at the corded phone on her kitchen wall.
Everyone had gathered to see Ragatha’s newly conjured home. It sat on a large island, connected to the main circus grounds by a bridge. It had an orchard, a barn, a pasture, and a wrap-around fence to prevent Ragatha’s future animals from walking off the side into the Void.
Gangle rubbed her wrist. “It’s really nice, Ragatha, but...”
“Are you sure you want to move out?” Zooble asked. “People self-isolate before they abstract.”
Ragatha waved her hand. “It’s not like that, don’t worry! I’ve just felt a hankering to build something for myself since Caine showed us Suzie’s house.”
Deep, painful envy; a hankering; same thing.
Lately, the circus had been closing in on Ragatha. It might be a mistake to put space between herself and the friends she finally had, but the truth was, she was struggling to be someone people should spend time around. Attempts to mention that to the others died in her throat when they had such a nice time after adventures, lounging in the common areas, finding things to laugh about.
WE’RE NOT REAL. HOW IS EVERYONE JUST OKAY WITH THAT?
Everyone’s positivity made her clench her fists and bite her tongue to keep from inappropriately blurting her real thoughts. It must’ve been how Jax had felt about Ragatha’s constant attempts to keep things upbeat.
I don’t want to become the next Jax and lash out because of my problems.
So, removing herself was the best Ragatha could do until she felt better about the I’ve-never-been-real situation.
Plus, leaving the tent let Ragatha experience a scrap of Suzie’s home-ownership win, lifting her thoughts for the first time in forever. She’d been flitting around designing her house for days, sharing her progress during adventures and rushing back afterward to continue construction.
The instant mood-boost only assured Ragatha that whatever was wrong with her could be fixed with a little solitude and goal-chasing; there was no reason to poison everyone else’s mental health with her personal issues.
Standing in Ragatha’s charming living room, Pomni’s troubled eyes said she had questions that she was balancing with respecting Ragatha’s freedom.
“Well, know that you can move back in anytime,” Pomni settled on saying. “We’ll still see you on adventures, right?”
“Of course! It’ll be the same, except I get to see what it’s like to move out.” Ragatha gave her best smile as she dropped a pleading hint of the truth, “It’ll be good for me. I designed it to be healing.”
Pomni accepted that and hugged Ragatha. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. We’ll be checking in.”
Ragatha’s friends lingered. Kinger complimented the floral-striped wallpaper she’d chosen for the kitchen. Zooble and Pomni speculated about the next adventure and double-checked that yes, Ragatha would tag along. Gangle planned to come over and draw the animals after Ragatha finished coming up with them. It wasn't until the sun went down that everyone but her returned to the circus.
The second that Ragatha was alone, she paced her new home. This is it. She’d severed herself from the pack. For good reason, though! It’s okay!
The doll dropped into an armchair, closed her eyes, and sighed. Even when the tent was quiet, she’d known people were nearby. Now there was only herself. She’d never asked for help before, but there was something psychologically distressing about knowing how much harder it’d be to reach out now. The distance was a wall.
Her foot jittered against the floor. I could go back.
But what would that do for her? At the tent, Ragatha had been sleeping in, unwilling to meet the day. She’d been pretending to eat. While everyone else showed up in new outfits, Ragatha slumped along in that same old raggedy dress. She’d had no energy to adopt habits that might improve her outlook.
It hadn’t been better living in the tent. It was just what she’d known before reality had been shattered. There was no going back to the way Ragatha had felt about the tent before she’d learned they were digital copies, so she needed to move on and give her house the best chance it could have at stitching her back together.
“Step one,” Ragatha said. She thought hard, and an alarm clock dropped into her lap.
“Two,” she shoved out of her chair and went to the fridge for a yogurt.
“And three,” a button-up pajama set replaced her dress in an instant. She shivered. Next time, she’d change her clothing by hand.
I’ll just think up my wardrobe right now. Ragatha got to work, and with each blouse and pair of jeans she dreamed into existence, she told herself she could really make it out here. Why would she need so much clothing otherwise?
This island is a retreat for me to sort myself out. Leaving the tent is the first step toward fixing myself, not toward abstraction.
I’ll stay sane out here.
There was so much to love about the place Ragatha had made.
It was her dream property; a place Suzie would’ve taken buyers while wishing she could have it for herself. An acreage that encouraged you to slow down, whistle, and wander.
Ragatha hung a beautiful, realistic sky that she synced with the circus’s day-and-night cycle. She spent her first night at her new home stargazing with Chestnut, the stunning brown thoroughbred she’d created minutes earlier.
Suzie had a Chestnut, too. Ragatha’s Chestnut was made of polygons, but he would never die as Suzie’s would. Was it cruel to be glad about that?
No... Surely I deserve at least one perk over her.
In her pasture, Ragatha lay over a quilt she pretended was handmade, feeling her new pajamas with her palms and resolving to never wear her patchy dress again. It belonged to another era. Her fingers brushed her bow. Her head filled with the memories of everywhere this bow had been with her, and her eyes pricked. She could still feel Jax tugging on it.
The bow stayed.
After stargazing, Ragatha put Chestnut away in the luxurious barn and headed inside to cook.
Manifesting the buildings was one thing, as she wasn’t a builder, but she knew how to cook. She made herself spaghetti the human way. Waiting, watching, mind-wandering.
Ragatha considered inviting people back for a meal, but seeing her friends’ goofy avatars so soon after leaving was bound to remind her exactly where she was.
Besides, the only person whom she was sure liked pasta was Jax, and Jax had abstracted.
Oh, Jax. Why did her mind keep going to him tonight?
Finding Jax abstracted, Ragatha had prayed to turn back time. She’d blamed herself for giving him the space he’d demanded. I wished it had been me.
But after Caine miraculously returned and told the group about Leeroy, a numbness replaced the old horror surrounding abstraction. The real Jax was alive, delivering mail with a silly salute, experimenting with makeup, and hanging out in bars with his friends. The circus had never touched him.
Ragatha had never cried again over Jax’s circus counterpart. Just one of the things she knew better than to share, so she’d maintained the expected grief in her voice whenever Pomni mentioned the rabbit. Faking that Ragatha was still concerned about him had been exhausting.
She had no one she had to pretend for tonight.
The spaghetti with a glass of red wine was the best meal she’d had in years. Ragatha was Suzie, escaped from her mother and living off her real estate success, looking forward to her future.
If only the delusion could last.
The next few nights followed a pattern.
Ragatha rode Chestnut to the tent to see everyone and stay involved in the adventures, and afterward, returned to her tranquil private estate. She created animals, cooked for herself, and indulged in long baths, even though the grime on her avatar faded automatically.
She was certain she was doing what she’d meant to do by leaving: making peace with her circumstances. Reassuring herself that this digital life could be real in its own way. That if she carved out a few instances of peace and enjoyment, her life would have had meaning, even if everything someday disappeared in a flash of electronic failure.
Unfortunately, the thoughts that’d plagued Ragatha in the circus took only days to tail her to her new home, stronger than ever—as soon as the novelties wore off.
Cooking in the farmhouse kitchen felt real. What do I know about ‘real’?
The green apples from her orchard tasted like the ones from her memories. I’ve never eaten an apple.
Living on this island was the most free will she’d ever had. I’m data on a dying computer.
Weeks passed as Ragatha dutifully went on adventures, and meanwhile, she contemplated how her friends were data, too. And she didn’t like the inside of the circus anymore. The cycle of that place ruined any shred of stability that Ragatha managed to build from moving away.
It was becoming hard to relate to anyone, as if everyone but Ragatha lived in a different reality.
Gangle and Pomni helped Caine come up with adventures; how could they focus on projects like that when the world could shut down at any time? Kinger thought the abstractions were more peaceful than ever; was that a better way to live, then? Maybe we should all just abstract already so we have nothing to worry about!
Little felt worth saying when Ragatha had become fundamentally different and knew no one would understand where she was coming from. She’d never outrun the truths of the circus, but at least on her farm, she’d escaped the happy mass psychosis everyone else was under.
She knew who she sounded like, and she didn’t care. It wasn’t as if he could rub it in her face that he’d been right.
Ragatha stopped attending the adventures.
“I really think you should come back,” Pomni said, a month after Ragatha’s move and a week after the doll had ceased playing circus games.
“I might eventually,” Ragatha said placatingly. She had no plans to return, but admitting that out loud would give Pomni something to argue with and prolong the visit, and she would rather have solitude today.
Pomni had found her in the pasture, where Ragatha was letting animals out from the barn. She’d conjured a zoo’s worth by now.
The urge to take care of her pets got her out of bed most of the time, even though they weren’t alive and therefore didn’t truly need fresh hay and water. Her suspension of disbelief was stronger with the animals.
A sheep came up, asking for attention with its eyes.
“Hi, Muffin. You’re perfect company, aren’t you?” Ragatha crouched in the grass and ran her mittens over Muffin’s long face.
Jester shoes crept into Ragatha’s field of vision. Ragatha held her breath.
“We never see you anymore,” Pomni said. “You canceled on Gangle yesterday. Everyone misses you.”
Ragatha brushed leaves from her sheep’s wool, something to look at rather than Pomni. “I need time to think.”
“Think about what?” Pomni asked. “Woah!”
Ragatha looked up just in time to catch Clover the goat bowling over Pomni. Had Ragatha subconsciously caused that? Whoops...
Hitting the ground knocked the patience out of Pomni. Her gloves fisted the grass, then let go and pushed her to her feet. Her pinwheel eyes narrowed.
“Look, Ragatha, we gave you space, but I don’t think it’s helping you. And I never want to see another person abstract.”
Ragatha hadn’t thought of the last abstraction in a while. She stood from her crouch.
“Jax is alright in his own way, isn’t he?” she asked, idly gazing across her animals to see who all had come out. “Abstraction isn’t like we thought it was. You can even talk to him.”
“Once,” Pomni said tightly. “I- He only- It never worked again.”
Ragatha hummed. “Sorry, Pomni. I thought it would keep working.”
If Pomni had already told her about not being able to communicate with Jax, it hadn’t made enough of an impact on Ragatha to remember. Leeroy was fine.
“I don’t know why it hasn’t worked again,” Pomni said. “I- I really hope he’s okay in there.”
“I bet he is,” Ragatha said, smiling politely.
Pomni looked Ragatha in the eye. “The uncertainty with Jax is even more reason not to let you do this to yourself, whatever this is.”
Oh, spare me already!
Ragatha put her hands out, palms to the sky as she leaned toward Pomni. “You make it sound so serious, Pomni. It’s just a farm!”
Pomni’s hand clenched against her chest. “You were never this detached before. You’re acting like—” she changed course, “I know something’s going on.”
“It’s really not a big thing.” Ragatha crossed her arms, barely keeping from rolling her eye.
Pomni would never understand her. She’d been ready to give up on escaping in her first month. Pomni was somehow enjoying not being a person. Trying to force Ragatha to do the same.
Ragatha had so many memories of a horrible woman, thinking she knew what was best for her, pushing and pushing until Suzie broke.
“I can’t turn a blind eye and wait for you to come to me,” Pomni said.
Pomni might need to save someone to make peace about Jax, but Ragatha wasn’t that someone.
“I’ve been in the circus for nine years,” Ragatha said, holding back less acid from her tone than she had been thus far. Pomni’s head jerked back.
“I- I know, but—”
Ragatha cut her off, “I’m the only one besides Kinger who’s ever made it for this long. I’d know if I were in trouble.”
“But what if you didn’t?”
“I’m fine, Pomni.” Ragatha was sick of no one taking her word. This visit wasn’t the first attempt from Pomni or the others to trap her in the tent. “I live here, now, and it’s the best choice I ever made.”
“What if it’s driving you crazy?!” Pomni blurted.
You’re the thing driving me crazy!
Ragatha pressed her fingers to her temples, trying not to make this into a bigger scene than it already was. She breathed out.
“If you can’t let me explore what this digital life means to me,” she said, “and let me figure out how I need to do things to make it to year ten, I might need some time apart from visitors.”
The rest of the circus petitioned against Ragatha’s request to be left alone, as if they could outvote her about whether she allowed visitors.
Freedom of choice, until it isn’t the choice they want me to make.
The constantly ringing phone chaffed Ragatha’s nerves, so she conjured a mute button for it. She pretended she wasn’t home more often than she answered the door. The spotlight on her interrupted the few things she enjoyed doing and kept her monitoring the yard, watching for anyone crossing her bridge.
“You’re making it worse,” Ragatha told Zooble one sunny afternoon, tapping her finger against her crossed arms.
Zooble stood on her porch, trying to guilt-trip her into spending time at the tent because everyone missed her.
“There’s no way that people checking on you is worse than leaving you to become a hermit,” Zooble said.
“You of all people should have no problem with hermits.”
“Right, so I understand where you’re coming from. But I don’t isolate myself anymore,” Zooble said. “Ragatha… We were too hands-off with Jax at the end, and none of us is eager to repeat that mistake.”
I’ve been so patient! No one deserves my patience anymore!
Ragatha uncrossed her arms. One fist clenched at her side, and her other hand swatted the air. “I’m NOT Jax! Can you pass that along for me?!” Even if she agreed with Jax on a few things, she was doing everything in her power not to hurt people with her thoughts. She’d removed herself for that exact reason. “I don’t know how anyone is getting us confused!”
Zooble shifted their weight, cocking a brow. “Maybe it’s the way you’re shoving everyone away when you clearly need help.”
“All I need is some peace. No adventures, no tent, no Caine.” Ragatha’s muscles quivered as she longed to slam the door, run to her bedroom, and squeeze her stuffed horse until she could think and breathe properly. “I’m fed up with the constant interruptions and everyone telling me I’m going to end up like Jax!”
“It’s not a one-to-one comparison. But secluding yourself this hard is dangerous.”
“It’s a stupid point to make anyway!” Ragatha went on. “The abstractions are fine in the real world, so what does it matter what happens in here?”
Zooble’s eyes widened. “We’re separate consciousnesses from the people we’re scans of, so no, it’s not fine that anyone abstracted,” they said with some edge.
“That’s an opinion,” Ragatha said. “I’m also allowed to have one of those.”
“Are you even hearing yourself?”
“Yes! And I know you’re just going to talk about whatever I say when you go back, so I shouldn’t be saying anything, but you’re all driving me batty! And maybe it’s what you need to hear. I don’t care about abstracting anymore, and I don’t think it matters that people have abstracted.”
Zooble hissed a breath. “If your goal was to make me less concerned, yeah, you shouldn’t have said any of that.”
“Why is it fine if you want privacy, but when it comes to me, I’m everyone’s business?” Ragatha demanded. In her mind swirled memories of a maliciously prying mother. Go away, Suzie’s problems!
“Can you agree to at least start visiting us again, or to let us come over here?”
“Not now.” Ragatha closed the door in Zooble’s face and locked it. “Please go home,” she said through the wood.
I just want time alone.
Nothing else helps. Every stupid visitor ripped Ragatha out of her barely held peace and safety, reminding her how close to the cliffside she was. Can’t they see they’re pushing me off?
“Dude, come on,” Zooble’s voice came, muffled. “Do you have any idea how much this hurts to watch?”
Ragatha couldn’t answer again if she wanted to. She gripped her chest and sat on the other side of the door, swallowing the spasms in her throat. Only when those clunky steps had walked out of range did she let out a sob.
Everything was stirred up and wrong. She’d been having an okay morning, a numb one, at least; now she’d suffer for the rest of the day.
She clenched her bangs. Her tears fell heavily, dotting her jeans.
No more visitors.
Getting people to accept the no-visitors rule took time, the removal of Ragatha’s doorbell, and one painful intervention attempt where Caine zapped her to the tent.
“I told you I didn't want to come!” Ragatha cried. The striped red and yellow walls crushed her as her heart pounded out of her chest. “How could you do this to me?!”
People were shocked by her state.
“We didn’t think it’d upset you this much,” Gangle said, her ribbon arms wrapped around herself. “We just wanted to see that you were okay...”
“I WAS UNTIL YOU DID THIS!” Ragatha scooted until her back hit the base of the stage, wanting to get away from all of this. Her legs were too unsteady to lift her from the tiles. “If I’ve ever done anything right by you, please, please...send me back!”
Or she would abstract. Right here in front of them, that’s what it felt like. Ragatha begged with her eye.
Zooble and Gangle gaped at the pathetic display.
Kinger cocked his head, confused by the drama, but always kind. “If you want to go home that badly, you should.”
“I’m sorry, Ragatha,” Pomni said earnestly, her lip wobbling. “This was a bad idea. We won’t try to force you back here again, so please don’t abstract at your house.”
Caine sent her home. Ragatha clawed herself back from the brink with a bottle of wine and a day curled on her side on the living room floor, and she got her wish to be left alone.
Mostly alone. Her old friends had resigned themselves to not approaching her door again without an invite, but they sent letters she could choose whether to look at.
Her mailbox was bursting at the seams. At least it was easier to ignore than visits and phone calls.
Ragatha’s mood continued to sink, her home finally a sanctuary in which to be miserable. She stopped watching the windows and held on for a couple of nights before abstraction came to meet her.
She was lying in her king-sized bed—a fantasy of Suzie’s—staring at the beating ceiling fan and listening to the heavy rain she’d decided suited tonight. Ragatha desired nothing in that moment, her head full of fuzz. She hadn’t expected to begin abstracting because she hadn’t known that it came when you were calm.
One moment, there was only the ceiling above her, and the next, there was Jax. Not abstracted Jax. That clued her in that something significant was happening.
It was odd to see him. Like her bow, Jax represented the time before Ragatha had known the truth. Good. Bad. Nostalgic.
Why does this feel real? The clearest dream I’ve ever had...
“Are you playing the Grim Reaper?” Ragatha asked the silent bunny, a tentative smile on her lips. Jax was one of the few people she wasn’t upset with. He had no chance to bother her anymore.
Jax stared at her with dark, unreadable eyes as he loomed. Ragatha remained flat on her back, the way she’d fallen asleep. A gloved hand slowly raised over the bed. It looked like Jax was offering her a deal to shake on.
Oh...I think I know what’s happening.
The fear that should’ve come with that realization was absent. Ragatha felt empty.
Should she do this? Would it be better?
It doesn’t matter what I do either way. I know that by now.
Maybe nine years was enough.
Ragatha’s mitten rose from her sheets as Jax intently watched. He waited for her to close the gap rather than meeting her in the middle. Alright, Jax. It may as well be you who shows me how to end this. You being the expert and all...
Her palm was an inch from Jax’s, close enough to feel a radiating coldness. It was about to spread to her, wasn’t it? Jax was about to put her on ice.
I hope it’s pleasant.
A loud clattering from outside startled Ragatha awake. She shot up, bewildered. Stunned.
“Jax? Hello?” Ragatha looked from corner to corner, but the rabbit was gone.
Her heart beat in her throat, the stakes of the situation catching up to her only after she was out of it.
When had she fallen asleep? Had she really just been about to ask Jax to help her abstract? Or am I making things up, and that was only a weird dream?
Ragatha was pulled from her thoughts as something banged again on the other side of her exterior wall. She jerked away from the pounding. Whatever was outside, it growled.
Did Caine or the other brain scans make a monster to hurt Ragatha’s animals because they were upset with her? Would they do that? Maybe they were sick of writing letters, and now they were trying to force her back to the tent by making her home unsafe.
It didn’t make total sense, but if that’s what it was, it wouldn’t work. Ragatha would catch whatever they’d made and send it right back to them.
She cut off the rain as she trekked into the black yard in her pajamas. The still-muddy ground splashed up her legs.
Ragatha didn’t see what she was out there with at first—when its eyes were closed, it was one with the new moon sky. A rainbow of eyes crescented open and glowed before her, lighting the body of the abstraction.
“Woah!” She skidded to a stop and nearly fell over.
Yardscaping lights lay trampled under the abstraction’s feet, and the banging on the side of the house must’ve been from it destroying the Edison bulbs strung along the building.
Despite Ragatha’s enlightened thoughts about abstraction not mattering, catching one of the abstracted without expecting it had her weak in the knees. She’d never forget how abstracted Kaufmo had thrown her against the walls and floor, painfully fraying her code until she was an unstable wreck.
“Oh my God,” Ragatha said. “How did you get to my farm? Who are you?”
After her dream, the answers seemed obvious. All but one abstraction were kept in the aquarium, which they couldn’t simply walk out of. Jax easily could’ve wandered here from his fort inside the tent.
Despite his destructive spree, he looked calm, his black form smooth and undangerous. Jax stared at her with too many eyes, making Ragatha feel like she was under a magnifying glass.
Her legs grew steadier as the initial shock wore off. She stood taller. “Do you- recognize me? You’re Jax, right?”
Jax had no way of answering if he understood. The abstraction stepped closer to Ragatha, his head tilting to see all of her.
She realized that Jax hadn’t seen her in months, even before she’d moved out. Ragatha had paid a few obligatory visits after he’d first abstracted. She never tried to go into his head as Pomni had done; she just awkwardly stood on the pillow wall leading into his fort and wished him well as Pomni watched like a mother bear. Ragatha had stopped going when other people stopped making her.
“Sorry if you wanted more visits,” Ragatha said, backing up for each step Jax took; it might pay to be cautious. “I guess I didn’t think you’d care. And I was in a weird place.”
Why was she justifying herself to him? I don’t want to get mauled. Then I’d have to call Caine to fix me.
It was impossible to tell what Jax was thinking, or if he thought at all. Ragatha backed into a fence; nowhere else to go. Jax examined her for one more stomach-flipping moment, his skin emitting a chill like an open freezer as his sea of pupils focused on Ragatha. She held her breath.
As suddenly as the weird moment had begun, Jax turned around and wandered off. Ragatha slumped against the wood at her back. Glass shattered as Jax stomped on another garden light.
What was THAT all about?
And what am I supposed to do now?
Would Jax return to the tent on his own? It had been a massive headache for Zooble to wrangle him into the fort the first time. Ragatha wasn’t up for doing that. She also wasn’t up for calling anyone at the circus to come retrieve him, thereby opening herself to further conversation attempts.
This was too much for her to figure out after she’d nearly abstracted, so Jax would just have to deal with himself.
Ragatha ensured that all of her animals were safely in the barn, then she called to Jax,
“Go home when you’re done whatever you’re doing. Stay out of my barn.” She didn’t want her animals to become glitched. Not that she thought Jax could get in anyway, or that he could understand the command. It’d always been slightly easier to snark at Jax, and the words just came out.
Inside her home, Ragatha changed her muddy pajama bottoms and threw herself back onto the bed.
She listened to Jax breaking things outside and was oddly resigned to fixing it all tomorrow. Jax smashing her lights wasn’t malicious like it would be if Pomni, Zooble, or Gangle were doing it. He was simply doing what abstractions did.
Is that really what I want to be?
Actually seeing an abstraction had reminded Ragatha of how unknown that state of being was, and a sinking pit in her stomach said she was glad she’d been interrupted earlier.
Ragatha would think about it for longer. She tucked her quilt up to her chin.
SMASH.
“Goodnight, Jax,” she said, sure that her new company would be gone when she woke up.
At first, it seemed that she’d been right about Jax leaving.
Ragatha stretched under the sun, freshly dressed in her work clothes, hair brushed and tied back. She’d been falling behind on outfit changes and hair care recently, so she’d call it a temporary new lease on life after her almost-departure.
Glancing at the broken lights with a little intention was enough to repair them all instantly. There were still some muddy spots from the rain, but most of the pasture was dry now, and pleasantly green from the drink it’d gotten. Ragatha walked all around in her boots, checking behind buildings and in the shady orchard. With every place she peeked behind, the suspense built.
Jax was nowhere out here.
Ragatha suffered restlessness in her hands. She fiddled with her shirt, smoothing and retucking it.
She hadn’t wanted Jax to still be here, had she? For what?
Maybe it was because his coming here had been the most interesting thing to happen in weeks. Seeing him separated him from Leeroy in my mind, and now I’m a little curious what he’s up to.
That was crazy. Surely, her random interest in Jax would fade soon. He was just a ruined copy.
Like I almost became.
Ragatha shuddered. It’d been a weird diversion last night, but things were back to normal. It was time to feed and let the animals out.
She freed her chickens and ducks from their coop before heading toward the barn.
The large doors rested slightly apart. Had Ragatha forgotten to latch them yesterday? That was unusual for her, though she had been in a fog for most of the day.
She filled the hay troughs in case her animals wanted more after they came in, then she let everyone out to graze. The barn emptied in a way she tried not to recognize as automatic.
Ragatha was about to turn around and look for more chores to stay immersed when her eye caught movement. The animals were all gone; she should be alone.
In the back corner of the barn, the furthest from light, slept an abstraction. She wouldn’t have been able to spot him at all if not for his faintly glowing closed eyes.
“Jax?! You were supposed to go home!” Ragatha approached him.
That explained the open doors. She was lucky none of her animals were fizzling out after spending the night with him. Why wasn’t she more upset?
Maybe it was because Jax was almost sweet lying there like that, a sleepy, docile lump after he’d gotten his energy out last night. Part of Ragatha considered letting him be, but if she didn’t send him on his way, he might harm her pets.
“Hey, wake up.” She stomped the ground near Jax’s face. It wasn’t very loud with her stuffed doll feet, but the proximity woke him.
Only a few eyes opened, as if he was checking if he could keep sleeping.
“Did you get stuck here because the sun came up?” Ragatha asked. “That’s why you should stay in your fort, Jax. We made it to keep things dark for you.”
Instead of answering, Jax watched her. It didn’t feel like being watched by the sharp-eyed, lucid Jax. He had something like the pseudo-understanding gaze of Chestnut.
“You’re going to make me talk to everyone when they’ve just finally left me alone,” Ragatha sighed. “If I don’t, Pomni will come looking for you anyway. Or Caine might teleport you back.”
She chewed her lip. It’d be cruel to startle a serene Jax for everyone else’s convenience. She’d hated when Caine had done that to her, and an abstraction would probably be even more agitated by sudden, confusing, unwanted teleportation than Ragatha had been.
She groaned, resigning herself to brief social interaction. “Okay, Jax. I’ll call your babysitter. She’ll come fetch you.”
Jax lay his head down as Ragatha left, cozy enough you’d think he’d been living there for ages.
She made for the house and her wall phone. Her old friends carried mobiles, so Pomni quickly answered when Ragatha called.
“Ragatha! Are you okay? I mean—what’s up?” She sounded stressed. Ragatha had an idea why.
“Jax is here,” she said.
“He is?!” Clack. Did Pomni drop her phone? There was a scrambling sound. “I was looking for him, but I didn’t want to resort to Caine’s summoning. Thanks for telling me. I’ll come get him.”
“In the middle of the day?”
“O-oh. Right. I’ll come as soon as it’s dark out and bring Jax back to the tent.”
“That’d be great.”
“But Ragatha, about you...”
“I’ll see you tonight, Pomni. Thanks!” Ragatha shoved the receiver into its case with a click. Already her throat was tight, when she wouldn’t see people for hours yet.
Jax had better appreciate this!
Ragatha checked on Jax a few more times to make sure he was behaving, but he remained asleep. Maybe he was never active during the day. Pomni may have mentioned that once.
The peaceful, heavy sound of Jax’s breathing painted him like a hibernating dragon in her barn.
I don’t mind him. He could have his own space out here, separate from the animals.
What were these thoughts for? Ragatha wasn’t keeping Jax. Pomni was coming to get him.
And in the ways that counted, Jax nor anyone else here was real, so why was Ragatha’s sympathy making a reappearance just because her abstracted ex-friend had decided her barn was a comfortable place to rest?
His presence was only going to whip up the storm in her head further.
She pointed at him. “You’re going home.”
Jax cracked one eye that lazily studied Ragatha’s hand. It drooped until it shut as he fell back asleep.
Ragatha sat on a bale, watching Jax for far longer than she’d intended as dry, sharp hay itched her through her clothes. She hugged herself, rubbing her arms lightly.
Jax didn’t remind her of bad things, as she’d assumed he would. On the contrary, he was probably the safest guest she could have; someone who couldn’t nag her even if he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
Or would he have commiserated with her? All of the things Jax hadn’t liked about her, Ragatha wasn’t those things anymore. She wasn’t pretending everything was fine. She was living in a game of her own these days.
Jax actually might’ve understood the new me if he’d gotten to meet her.
Ragatha decided she should be there to watch Jax go. She told herself it was because the others were on her property, but she also wanted to see how they treated him. That would help her surrender her temporary guardianship.
“Come on, you big jerk,” Zooble said. “You know what we’re doing. Stop squirming.”
Jax growled, knocking Zooble’s chain of arms from his neck before they could connect. His rash movements filled the air with hay dust that somehow made Zooble sneeze. It was good foresight that Gangle hadn’t come, because he’d knocked into people more than once.
Pomni’s brows furrowed as she looked up at Jax. “Why don’t you want to come home?”
Zooble sighed, rubbing where a nose would be. “Maybe it’s time for us to admit that he’s done with living in the tent.”
Huh?
“He doesn’t want to live in the tent anymore?” Ragatha asked. It was her first contribution since the two had arrived, aside from showing them where Jax was.
Jax never did choose to stay there, she realized. That’s just where we decided was best for him. Ragatha knew what it was like to want out of that tent...
Pomni’s eyes had widened. She answered Zooble rather than Ragatha. “No- I’m not- I mean, he’s not ready to move to the aquarium. He asks me to leave whenever we take him there.”
“And how does he ask you? I’m sorry, Pomni, but you might be reading what you want to read from him.”
“He wants to stay,” Pomni insisted. “He told me when I went into his head.”
“Months ago,” Zooble said, gentle but straightforward. “One time that you might have hallucinated.”
“I didn’t hallucinate it! Just- help me get him back to the tent.” Pomni collected Zooble’s arms and tossed them around Jax’s big neck again.
His smooth form was beginning to ripple.
Does Jax not want to go?
“Wait,” Ragatha said.
Zooble was focused on Pomni and the task. “Okay. We’ll talk about this after.”
Just as Pomni got the chain of body parts fastened to each other, a roar split the air—a collar of spikes shot up from Jax’s neck.
“Ow!” Zooble crumpled into themself as their limbs fell to the floor, glitching. “Motherfucker! Pomni, we clearly need Caine’s help.”
“He hasn’t done that before,” Pomni defended weakly, but one look at Zooble’s pained form stopped her. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll get him.” She took a deep breath to shout for Caine.
“Wait!” Ragatha stepped in front of Jax. “Wait. If Jax wants to stay here, he can. He should get to choose.”
No one had expected her to get involved. Pomni and Zooble stared uncomprehendingly.
“But you don’t even let us come out here,” Zooble said. “Why the hell would you let Jax?”
“He can hardly bother me the way he is, can he?” Ragatha asked. “Far less than anyone else can.”
“I don’t want to leave him where he isn’t wanted,” Pomni said. “I care about him.”
“It’s not like I’m going to do anything bad to him,” Ragatha said, gesturing toward the abstraction. “If I even could. Jax can handle himself.”
“Not like this, he can’t,” Pomni said.
Ragatha threw her arms out. “What could even happen? He can’t abstract twice. Just let him do what he wants—I don’t care.”
“Are you sure?” Zooble asked.
A little more discussion followed, but ultimately, Pomni and Zooble had to accept Ragatha’s logic: nothing worse could happen to Jax, and he’d made his wishes clear.
“Jax is better company than you’d think,” Pomni said on the way out, gripping the sliding barn door’s edge. “I’ll miss him… But if this is what he wants, I hope you two will be good for each other.”
“I hope we’re not dragging home two abstractions next time we come down here.” Zooble stumbled outside on their mismatched legs.
“Come back any time you want,” Pomni said. “Both of you.”
Ragatha wrinkled her nose after they’d gone. “I see why you’re sick of it, Jax.”
The abstraction was frazzled after the touching and pushing, his pupils darting. He backed into the corner she’d first found him in, nowhere close to the door.
“It’s alright,” Ragatha said. “I won’t kick you out.” I wish he knew what I’m saying...
She stood a comfortable distance away, waiting for Jax to realize he wasn’t going to be forced to leave. Gradually, he smoothed out, and she came closer. Slowly, in case he minded.
He let her close enough to pick a piece of hay from his black surface. A few eyes glanced at Ragatha, but otherwise, Jax permitted the almost touch. The relative display of trust made her feel a little good, and she found she wanted to grow that trust.
Ragatha lowered her hand gently and looked around. “The only thing I don’t know about is this barn.”
She had to let her animals back in, and it wasn’t a suitable environment for Jax long-term, anyway. Light flooded most of the barn during the daytime, and the bleating and neighing of her animals could startle Jax.
“I’ll set you up with something better,” Ragatha promised.
Jax, on Ragatha’s Island
Jax understood things abstractly.
He knew the difference between peaceful and annoying. He enjoyed wet and dark and hated bright. Concepts beyond basic preferences, he only grasped some of the time.
Lately, he was sick of overhearing chatter, music, and that loud ringmaster. Buzzing portals in the main area made his head hurt. The hallways of pocket worlds processed too much, leaving not enough resources for what Jax needed to work on. He innately knew this.
So, one evening, after it was dark, Jax climbed over a pillow wall and walked out of one tent, then out of another. He wandered along a dirt path.
A heavy rain attracted him to a quiet, floating bit of land off the main grounds. The only place with rain that night.
This rainy island dwelled on a much emptier hard drive than the one that ran the circus. Jax felt less cumbersome here, less stalled, and less hot, which were strong motivators for him to dig his heels in and not be removed by Pomni and Zooble.
Ragatha’s presence on the island was neither here nor there.
She’d been annoying, once, and now she wasn’t. Lucid people’s energy was usually alien to Jax’s, but Ragatha was oddly close to his wavelength. It made him more tolerant of her right out of the gate.
Plus, she got everyone else to leave him alone. He liked that.
Jax also liked the garage-like building Ragatha made for him, close to her house, with a tall fence separating him from the animals. There were still gaps for him to exit. He was not trapped.
His windowless structure had a black flap covering the door, so Jax could let himself in and out while keeping the interior dark. He loomed inside, watching Ragatha add a large bed on the floor and a shallow pool at the back.
Jax brushed past her to lie in the pool. Ragatha was pleased with that. Good feeling. It washed over him, too, mirrored.
Oh, right. Jax sensed feelings...when he was in the mood to listen. On the flip side, almost all spoken language carried no meaning, breaking apart before he could interpret it. It occasionally frustrated him until he forgot why he was bothered.
Jax relaxed into the cold water lapping at his body; staying chilly was good for him. He laid his head in the pool.
Ragatha was making noise, saying words, whatever. She may have asked a question. Jax heard the name he sometimes comprehended was his—it’d taken him a long time in his tent to work out what a name was, and he still didn’t entirely care—then the basin deepened.
Had Ragatha done that? It felt even nicer. Jax melted into the high water, and soon only his background processes were running. Those programs were always doing something. Jax couldn’t care what as long as he was comfortable.
He slept decently, though he could’ve slept even better if the flap moving hadn’t woken him up every time Ragatha popped her head in. She gave him stuffed animals and more blankets, and the last time, a plate of spaghetti. He personally had no way to describe what he was looking at.
Jax didn’t eat; he didn’t understand the concept, but he did investigate the spaghetti and was startled by an inexplicable, bubbling excitement rising up out of nowhere—like, like, like—and he smashed the plate with his foot.
He stared at the mess. What was there to like about this? Beyond him.
Jax slinked back to his lovely pool and returned to sleep.
Ragatha visited Jax inside his building. At first, it was only once in a while, but her appearances gradually became more frequent as her confidence built. Jax observed the apprehension she felt towards him shift into a quiet fondness.
He needed low stimulation, but not zero. He fancied Ragatha’s visits more than other people’s because there was a shifting, growing component in her that was the same thing as Jax. Thanks to this similarity, his brain didn’t have to work as hard to parse her logic and determine what she was thinking and doing.
Her lucid parts intrigued him, too. Jax was drawn to them as a sort of blueprint. It overwhelmed him to be confronted by the fully stable, like the people in the tent, so Ragatha was an ideal mix of what Jax already understood and things that his brain was still trying to figure out.
In those early times after he’d arrived here, nothing else really stood out to him. Time was meaningless and seemed to pass all at once.
Gradually, though, Jax developed an interest in tracking Ragatha’s shifting outfits, knowing they meant…something.
Days, it hit Jax one time when he awoke. Changing clothing indicated the passage of days.
He briefly grasped that there had also been something weird about clothing in the circus, but that was too complicated, so he let it go. It was enough work for Jax to realize it had been days since he’d arrived on the farm. Many, many days.
Ragatha came in the mornings, right after first light, and Jax had begun to wake around the time he expected her. Even though he disliked mornings due to the associated sun. He’d go back to sleep after.
“Hi, Jax!”
He knew that one. Hi, Jax. It was all Ragatha usually said, since she’d picked up on his annoyance whenever she rambled.
She carried a pillow under her arm. Then she swung her arm back and tossed it to him.
The rag doll usually brought him comfort objects, like pillows and blankets. She felt a little burst of pride whenever she gave him an item that he interacted with, so Jax poked everything she brought. Rather than being genuinely curious about the items, however—though he sometimes was—Jax primarily did it to examine Ragatha.
She was so numb inside, it was obvious to spot any other feeling that cropped up. Easy to study.
Like every morning, Jax’s instinct was to hop up, go to the pillow, and kick it into his pile of cozy stuff. Ragatha would like that.
He’d woken up curious, though, his mind itching to see a new reaction. He was piecing together a more eloquent understanding of cause and effect.
What would Ragatha feel if he didn’t engage with the gift?
Jax stayed where he was, sitting in his pool. He looked at the pillow and didn’t go to it.
The smile Ragatha came in with gradually fell, and her confusion bled into Jax. She asked him something.
Another pillow manifested in the air and dropped down with a fwump.
When Jax still didn’t get up, Ragatha kicked the pillows closer to try to get his attention.
You could barely see a change from the outside, but that was when something horrible tore its way out of Ragatha.
It was the worst and most sudden disappointment, guilt, fear rush Jax had ever had dumped over his head, as if the twigs holding a dam together had finally snapped.
He recoiled and spiked up—trying to shoot the feeling out of his skin.
Ragatha immediately noticed Jax’s distress, speaking fast, reaching towards him, and those feelings funneled sharply into acute worry, making him whine. Why was that even worse?
Jax tried to close off, as he’d done to Pomni and Gangle and everyone else who’d brought him too-complex feelings, but it wasn’t working. For the same reason that it was easy to read Ragatha, it was impossible to close their connection.
He had to get her to stop feeling like this.
Pushing to his feet on jittering legs, Jax went to the pillows. He tossed them into his pool and lay down with them, desperate to cool off.
He’d taken her gift. Was that enough?
Ragatha refused to leave Jax until he was calm, but how could he be calm when she was freaking out?
All Jax could do was suffer through it as Ragatha spoke softly to him. Her hand came close and he flinched away. She got the message: do not touch.
Torturously slowly, Ragatha’s mood evened out, Jax clumsily following her on how to finally drop this emotion. It was hard for her, so it took both of them forever.
Exhausted, Jax fell asleep while Ragatha was still there.
He was out of commission for the rest of the day. He had so much to process that he even slept through the night. Jax woke up and found the water in his pool had evaporated from the heat he’d put off.
The next time Ragatha came, Jax leaped up to see what she’d brought. He wasn’t doing yesterday twice.
Ragatha’s concern had never fully left, which made Jax’s skin ripple when he sensed it, but...something had changed for him overnight. Something big.
His mind had discovered a boundary that it hadn’t reliably known before. Jax suddenly understood how to observe Ragatha’s feelings without experiencing them.
If he ignored Ragatha again, it would not pain him.
But—whether from negative association or his unnamed, burgeoning sense of sympathy—Jax had also developed a new preference: he did not want Ragatha to hurt.
So Jax eagerly took the blanket Ragatha had for him today and tossed it onto his pile. Obvious acceptance. He listened to the relief cool her frayed nervous system, and he let himself enjoy the emotional balm with her. It felt good.
Jax’s approach to Ragatha’s moods shifted from observation to remediation.
One night, not too long after, Jax led Ragatha into the orchard.
He’d walked off and looked at her. She’d picked up that she was meant to follow.
Jax couldn’t pop things into existence as Ragatha could, but that didn’t mean he had nothing to give her. That was the concept that had returned to him today—giving.
At his side, Ragatha’s mind went in tight circles. The changing emotions caused Jax whiplash, and that was without even directly feeling them. He’d noticed that Ragatha was more unstable at night. That worked because night was when Jax was the most stable. He could think a little more concretely, if not quite as complexly as she thought. It was enough cognizance for him to recognize when Ragatha’s mood needed rescuing.
Jax went farther under the trees, knowing Ragatha was still nearby from the storm she was putting off. With every loop through her yard, that mental gloom dissipated until she was only confused about what Jax was making her do.
Wandering in the dark was good for him, and from what he could tell, it was working for Ragatha, too.
Jax led her until she was so tired that she would fall asleep as soon as she went into her house.
He did the same thing two nights later. And the night after that. Any time Ragatha needed a walk.
The first time Ragatha led him outside instead of waiting for him to invite her, Jax was startled by the sense of satisfaction blooming in his chest. It took him a few laps around the yard to understand it wasn’t coming from Ragatha.
The pride was all his.
He had a lot to process when he lay down.
Days passed as Jax continued to try to cheer up Ragatha.
Most days, Jax slept hard and awoke sharply. It was becoming natural for him to put two and two together; to largely understand what he was seeing, and to accurately predict how his actions would impact entities outside of himself. Over a week, he gained the ability to imagine, plan, and tell the temporary from the permanent.
It came to a point where Jax realized he couldn’t help Ragatha as much as she needed, given that he lived in the outbuilding and she was in her house. She came to him in a bad mood, he fixed her mood, and she went back to her house in a bad mood.
To prevent Ragatha from sliding backward, Jax needed to enter her home.
He followed her to the fence when she went to bed, but she didn’t understand. She let herself out of the gate, waved at him, and went in.
That weariness he’d just walked out of Ragatha built up the moment her door closed. Jax growled with frustration.
He rounded the side of the building, chasing the cloudy feelings he sensed through the wall. He lay against the siding outside the room Ragatha stopped in.
She left her yard lights off now that he lived here, but it didn’t stop Jax from bristling.
He wanted in.
Why couldn’t Ragatha hear the support Jax was throwing her way? Support was the thing she did for him; he’d finally put that together, and now he was doing his best to broadcast it back at her. Why didn’t it work for her the way it did for him?
It bothered him to watch her emotions tank. Jax wasn’t used to staying bothered. He wasn’t used to any of this.
The Ragatha dilemma disturbed Jax, yet it gave him focus. It changed him into a being who looked outside of himself for longer than a few seconds.
He tried for a long time to reach Ragatha’s mind.
“Jax?!”
Jax woke up in a rage under the bright sun.
He burned and writhed and roared, trying to escape his body and this experience, reaching blindly in every direction. The side of Ragatha’s house and a massive patch of field glitched and crackled around him.
A tent dropped from the sky over Jax’s head. Dark.
Even without understanding what words Ragatha was yelling, the mood lashing from her was fury, fire from the inside out.
Jax stomped, confused. Why was Ragatha mad at him?
He didn’t understand anything that was happening until the missing puzzle piece, Caine, appeared. Jax sensed that overloaded mess of code even stuck in this windowless tent. More than that, Jax was struck by the desperation to hide that exploded within Ragatha. The glitching damage was repaired in a snap, and with Ragatha’s insistence, Caine disappeared.
Jax put it together. He had caused instability to Ragatha’s home, and she had to bring Caine here to fix it. And seeing Caine upset her.
Okay.
A moment after Caine left, Ragatha crawled into the makeshift little tent. Jax could tell that she wanted to compress into nothing. She was embarrassed and ashamed.
“I’m sorry, Jax,” notably stuck out from the typical scrambled fog of speech, pairing exactly with her feeling of sorrow.
Jax listened hard for more, but he still couldn’t quite grasp most words.
She didn’t need to feel this way. Jax wished he could communicate his lack of a grudge.
Ragatha was covering her face now, crying. Everything in Jax urged to stop her despair. Instinct guided him to try something he hadn’t done with Ragatha before.
Jax stepped closer. His shoulder pressed into Ragatha’s side, and she gasped as the touch became a channel.
He pushed how fine, okay, and not mad he was.
Ragatha had a lot to say about that before she remembered Jax didn’t talk. She touched Jax’s arm a few times to confirm the communication.
The worst of her woes dissipated in front of him. She knew that Jax wasn’t leaving because of her yelling. There was relief, too, because she really wanted him here.
Something unknown stirred in Jax. He was wanted? Why was that so...why did it stick so much?
Ragatha asked him something and stroked his neck. She knew what it was like to be unwanted. She had deep wounds.
When Ragatha took her hand away, looking hesitant, Jax pressed back into it. He wasn’t done receiving reassurance.
Or giving it.
The way her heart melted from his action hypnotized him. She wanted to help. And she longed for help, too, which posed a question for Jax.
If he were more lucid, could he help more? Jax wasn’t sure if more lucid was something he could be. He just wanted to support her.
Ragatha wiped her cheeks. She brought Jax and the tent together to his home so he could avoid the sun.
After the intense morning, Jax had collapsed into his pool and slept so heavily that he missed Ragatha’s nightly visit.
That wouldn’t do.
He stretched, dripping water over his floor as he ambled outside. He climbed the fence, landing heavily on Ragatha’s front walkway. Her porch light scrambled his senses, but a sense of purpose rooted him. Jax closed some of his eyes and found he could tolerate the light a little better.
Jax clawed at Ragatha’s door.
When it opened, the doll was surprised and worried to see him, speaking a lot. Jax heard sorry again, and Ragatha extinguished the porch light.
Now that it was safe, Jax tried opening his eyes, but some remained closed.
Not closed. Gone?
Where were his eyes?
Ragatha turned off the rest of her house lights, stumbling in the dark as she guided Jax in. Her door was larger than Jax remembered, allowing him easy clearance. It made no sense, but he was distracted by other things.
For example, the astonished curiosity that Ragatha felt. Was it that weird that Jax had invited himself over?
Well, it didn’t matter. Jax was inside.
Most rooms in Ragatha’s home had something that made them unsuitable for Jax.
The kitchen and living room’s huge windows would let in the sun tomorrow. Ragatha shooed him out of her sewing room for some reason.
Neither of them wanted him in her basement. The discomfort spilled first from her and multiplied in Jax, who was coming to trust Ragatha’s opinions.
Not the basement.
Ragatha spoke. She was sorry, but altering the house was hard because the way she’d designed it was meaningful to her. She wanted to find Jax a spot that he already liked the way it was.
That was oddly understandable. Not perfect, but Jax had caught the gist.
He examined the small home until he found a room with a large bed and a humidifier that made the air pleasantly moist. He got up on the bed.
“Oh—wait, Jax. This is my bedroom. I know you don’t know why it’s weird for us to share, but it is. And my guest room is just as nice!”
Jax liked this room. He stared at Ragatha challengingly from the bed.
Wait a second. She’s talking. Those are actual words.
“…I guess I can take the guest room. You need a bigger bed, anyway. Well. I thought you did, but I swear you got smaller?”
Smaller? Had he?
Ragatha combed fingers through her curls. “What am I even telling you for? You don’t understand. I’ll just get a few of my things.”
She took clothing from her dresser, a bag from the ensuite bathroom, and a stuffed horse from the bed. Jax had been half-sitting on it, and she had to wiggle it loose.
Her hand slipped against his back for a second by accident, and the flash of information between them said they were both apprehensive but excited about Jax coming indoors. Ragatha felt less alone. She was less in her head than usual, too engrossed in this odd situation.
Ragatha smiled; apparently reassured by Jax’s feelings.
“It’s past my bedtime,” she said, “but you can do whatever you want. I’ll think up a button so you can use the front door, okay? Hopefully you find it… I’ll show you tomorrow.”
It got boring after Ragatha went to bed. Jax jumped off the mattress to stand by the humidifier for a while, the wet air splitting against his face.
Face. He didn’t have a face. Did he? If he did have a face, it was feverish.
Jax’s brain was working hard again. It was overloaded by a sudden capacity for language, overheating him. The spinning fan over his head lulled his remaining eyes closed, and he barely made it onto the bed to lie down somewhere nicer than the floor.
He’d check on Ragatha tomorrow.
Jax awoke to Ragatha speaking, but she wasn’t in the room with him.
“I don’t want you to run over here and scare him. I’m only telling you because I want you to ask Caine if he’s okay.”
Great, because Jax didn’t want a bunch of people to run over here either. He distinctly remembered being done with people.
Wait, why wouldn’t he be okay, though?
Jax slinked off the bed. It was taller than it had been last night, and he tripped from how surprisingly far away the floor was, thudding hard against the wood.
“Jax? What was that?” Ragatha called. “Look, Pomni, I have to go. Please just ask Caine to make sure Jax isn’t shrinking out of existence. That’s all I’m asking you to do right now.”
Jax rounded into the kitchen just as Ragatha hung up the phone.
She shrieked when she saw him. He stumbled back, senses fried by the loud sound.
Ragatha’s empty hands gripped the air. She loomed over him. “Why are you TINY?”
Jax didn’t know why he was tiny or why it was some massive issue, but Ragatha’s panic was contagious. Eyes he’d thought were gone opened across his body, and the hint of daylight he’d barely noticed in the kitchen turned into a blazing sun in his corneas.
Jax turned and ran into the wall.
“Wait, Jax!”
He blindly fumbled himself to Ragatha’s windowless bathroom and hopped into the bathtub, where the shower curtain at least felt like shelter. Shampoos knocked into the basin with him.
Ragatha’s soft steps were quick to follow. The curtain rings pulled back, and a face framed by red hair peered down at Jax. She reached for him.
Jax darted to the furthest corner. The feelings coming off of Ragatha were as if the world were ending. He still had spots in his eyes from the big kitchen windows.
“I’m sorry,” Ragatha said, lowering her voice. “Oh, I didn’t mean to scare you. Nothing’s wrong.”
Alright, liar.
“I’m just…surprised. Abstractions haven’t turned into little black bunnies before. I don’t want there to be anything wrong with you.”
Turned into what?!
“If you let me touch you, I’ll know you’re okay, right? Then I won’t be so freaked out anymore.” Ragatha’s hand stayed outstretched, waiting.
Touch her, and she’ll stop being nervous.
...fine.
Jax tentatively put his nose out, connecting with Ragatha’s fingers.
She bit her lip. She was still unnerved.
“Jax, the stuff you’re feeling is so much more complicated than it was yesterday.” Ragatha’s pupil darted across his face, looking into just two of his eyes. He found himself focusing there, his body’s eyes slowly closing.
“Why are you changing?” she asked.
Jax’s irritation traveled through the touch. He hadn’t done anything except want to stop her pain. Well, and he’d wanted to connect with her more. Understand more.
“If you’re forcing yourself to do this because I cried, please stop.” Ragatha’s hand fell away from Jax’s nose to rest inside the tub walls. “You seemed like you were doing really well. If that’s how you’re happiest, don’t give that up for me.”
No one could force him to do anything, actually.
He was feeling better now, though, in the dark and as Ragatha’s anxiety shifted into less apocalyptic avenues. She was just doing her Ragatha thing.
Jax came to the edge of the tub. He tried to get out the way he’d come in, but the walls were actually quite high and slippery.
“Okay, okay. Just hold on.” Ragatha lifted him.
Underneath her warring emotions, her fear for what all of this meant, Jax was given a front row seat to how she adored him.
Like a pet?
No, it went deeper. He knew her mind. Seeing similarities between Jax and her animals was just the easiest way Ragatha could connect with him over the months.
She refused to let people in. It was all so familiar, and not in a reassuring way.
She’s slipping away, Jax thought as she carried him back into the dark bedroom. Spiraling into the same thing I did.
I killed myself.
The realization shook him. He’d thought he’d never think again, but he’d slowly repaired his fractured mind. With Ragatha’s help. I used to be so upset with her.
Everything had changed. The most basic part of Jax had bonded with Ragatha, kind of fucking adored her right back, and now he was deeply entangled in her issues.
The rag doll stroked Jax’s ears before setting him on the bed. He sat there for a moment, staring out.
“Stay here where it’s nice and dark, Jax. I’m alright.”
Jax’s eye twitched. He wished he could shout at her. She was going nuts, and she knew it.
“I’m going to make some breakfast and get on with my chores. It’s kind of you to worry, but you should honestly worry about yourself, because I’m fine.”
Yeah, just like I was!
Ughhhh. They always had been similar, but Jax hadn’t let himself see that before.
He hopped down again and followed Ragatha into the kitchen.
“Jax? You can’t just- ugh. Hold on.” Ragatha turned off the kitchen lights and pulled down the blinds. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to cook like this, but I guess I’ll figure it out.”
Jax leaned against Ragatha’s foot as she stood at the stove. The smell of blueberry pancakes turned his head up towards her pan.
Smell. He’d lost that sense for ages.
“You weren’t being nice after all, were you?” Ragatha grumbled as she tried to get around without tripping on him. “You just missed messing with me.”
He did miss that, but he was trying to examine her feelings more closely. Touch had always strengthened this feelings interpretation crap, but now that Jax knew words, it was almost like mind-reading. He closed his eyes and listened.
Ragatha was desperately grasping for normalcy, purpose, and a sense of belonging. She wished she’d had the courage to stay on the phone for longer that morning. She begged herself to read the letters in her mailbox. She was still extremely preoccupied with the notion that Jax would leave her, or that whatever was changing within him would go wrong and hurt him. Now she was thinking about how none of it would even matter if the digital world were to turn off. Hoo boy.
Ah, and she missed sharing meals.
That last one was the easiest to tackle.
When Ragatha served herself and sat down, Jax stared at her plate.
“You don’t eat,” she said. “I always have to come throw it out later when I bring you anything.”
Jax stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air. He wasn’t just making a show of it. Her food smelled good, and he was hungry.
“Fine, but I’ll be annoyed when I want the rest of these later, and you didn’t even bother to eat them.”
Ragatha’s chair scooted before she got up and plated the remaining pancakes. She dressed his plate with fruit, syrup, and whipped cream. When she bent to place it on the floor, Jax jumped into the chair across from hers.
“Oh- I’m sorry. You’re right.” Ragatha set Jax’s food on the table. She cupped her brow and took slow bites of her own pancakes, full of confused guilt and the faint horror of faux pas. “Do you want...utensils?”
Jax didn’t even have hands, so no. But he wasn’t eating on the floor now that he could remind himself and Ragatha both of his personhood. He bit into a fluffy pancake.
The shock of flavor puffed his black skin into spikes.
“Are you okay?” Ragatha stood and hovered over him.
He was fine; he just hadn’t been able to taste for months. Jax took another bite and decided he was better than fine. He was starving and finally getting something to eat. It was the best feeling in the world.
“Holy cow, Jax.”
When he finished his pancakes, licked the cream off the plate, and looked up, Ragatha pushed her serving his way.
“I’ll make more,” she said.
Her heart betrayed that she felt just a tiny bit better. A drop in the bucket, but it was a start.
Jax had abstracted when he was alone, so he figured his best bet was not to leave Ragatha alone.
He tailed her to each of her made-up chores, much to her confusion as he’d never taken an interest before. Also, he wasn’t supposed to be out in the day like this.
“I guess I’ll make it super overcast,” she said as a compromise. “Is that enough? I don’t want to keep the animals in eternal night.”
It was dark enough for Jax to tolerate, particularly if he only used two eyes.
When Ragatha climbed onto one of her horses, Jax ran alongside her, trying to catch up.
“Wait, Chestnut.” Ragatha stilled the horse and slipped back down. “Jax, I really didn’t think you’d want to come. Are you sure? It’s kind of exciting.” She lifted Jax slowly, so he could scramble away if he wanted to. He let her bring him into her lap on the saddle.
With Ragatha so close, her nerves and the faintest glimmer of hope thrummed strongly through both of them.
“Okay...” she sighed. “I guess it’s like I told Zooble and Pomni. You won’t double-abstract.”
That was right. Hopefully. Jax didn’t know what the next stage could possibly be.
Ragatha was right—the ride was exciting. Jax barely felt safe enough not to spike up and hurt Ragatha, but her strong grip promised he wouldn’t fall. Wind buffeted his ears, and the shifting muscles of the horse made him unsteady.
For the whole ride, Ragatha spoke. It started as reassurances to Jax, but the support he shoved through their direct contact slowly drew out her more personal thoughts.
“You didn’t like it when I talked to you before,” she said, “but it’s like you’re really listening now. Is it crazy that makes me nervous? Abstraction was supposed to be the off switch...if I ever wanted it. But you’re not ‘off’ at all anymore.”
Jax looked up at her. She felt a lot, and it made him feel a lot. Cutting off their connection while they were together like this was impossible.
“I’m upsetting you.” Ragatha hugged him closer. “Jax, I’m sorry. This is just so weird. It’s the worst invasion of my privacy I’ve ever had, but it’s kind of a relief, too. I can’t hide one thing from you, can I?”
The horse slowed.
“Is this pace better? It’s okay, Jax. You’re fine. You don’t have to open your extra eyes. You’re safe.”
Jax hadn’t realized he’d been doing that—that’s why it was all seeming like too much suddenly. He did his best to relax in Ragatha’s arms.
Why had he tried to come back? This is too hard.
“We’re going back now. It’s alright.” Ragatha coaxed her own worries down, wishing to help him.
I can still quit and wait for her to join me. She wants to.
As overwhelmed as Jax was in the moment, he still couldn’t want that. His stomach lurched at the idea of bringing Ragatha down with him. Their hopes and fears bounced off of each other, Jax pressing reassuringly into Ragatha’s stomach as she securely gripped him.
They got back to the house exhausted, but Ragatha continued to hold Jax after she could’ve put him down, and Jax stayed in her arms without squirming. They silently talked each other down.
Pomni called back in the evening after Ragatha made spaghetti. Jax pigged out as he eavesdropped. If he listened hard, he heard both sides.
“It hasn’t happened before, but Caine thinks it’s a good thing,” Pomni said.
“I’m glad to hear that, because it’s maybe, um, progressing?”
“What does that mean? Is he okay? I really want to come over there, Ragatha.”
Jax thumped his foot, rattling everything on the table. He could barely deal with one person right now, and that was only because his dumb abstracted self had mystically latched onto Ragatha. He was not ready to see Pomni after everything she’d helped herself to seeing in his brain.
It was different with Ragatha. Anything she’d learned about Jax had been his choice. Ragatha knew from all their time together how important it was for Jax to be the one deciding when and what to share.
Just the thought of Pomni coming over, and maybe bringing everyone else, too, worked him into a pant. Since when did he breathe?
“Jax!” Ragatha called, clutching the phone cord. “Pomni, he’s giving me clear signs that he’s not ready for company.”
“How can I wait around when I wasn’t there the last time he needed someone?” Pomni asked.
“Because that’s what Jax wants right now. You know how obvious he is about not wanting things.” Ragatha’s voice softened. “But I promise I’ll take care of him.”
“...Okay. If that’s what he wants, that’s his right.” Pomni stalled. “Is he trying to turn all the way back?”
Jax’s eyes went wide. It was suddenly very bright in the room.
Ragatha looked at him. “This- this might be as far as he wants to go. I won’t put that pressure on him.”
The two wrapped up their call, and Ragatha returned to the table. “I think it’s fair to leave it up to you, Jax. That’s what I would want.”
Slowly, the room stopped shrinking. No one was coming. Ragatha had no expectations for him.
He was free to go back to his spaghetti.
Ragatha was silent for a moment.
“Jax, do you want wine?”
That bad idea was exactly up Jax’s alley. He shoved his head into Ragatha’s rounded glass. She held it steady for him as she giggled under her hand.
“I get it,” she said. “Me too... God, me too.”
The next few hours drifted by in a gentle blur. They cut each other off from the wine when it was obvious that they needed to. Ragatha lay on her stomach on the living room carpet, mirroring Jax, who lay across from her. She rested her chin on her arms. He put his paw out, and she put out her mitten, opening a connection.
Jax didn’t know if it would work, but he tried to show Ragatha how to process like him.
When it came time to sleep, Jax followed Ragatha to the guest room.
“What, now you want to trade?” Ragatha rolled her eye. It was good to see some sass in her. “I’ll just get my stuff again.”
She didn’t realize what Jax wanted until she’d settled back into her own bed and he jumped up with her.
“Jax! I told you we’re not co-sleeping.”
Well, too bad. Sleep was the most likely time to abstract. Jax would’ve been weird about this, too, once upon a time, but proximity to people meant something different to Jax as an abstraction.
Getting close was less terrifying when he could read people's feelings. The questions, and what he’d filled in the answers with himself, had been the part that’d driven him insane.
Ragatha scrunched the blanket in her hand. She was frustrated and happy at the same time.
“Okay, fine,” she sighed, and lifted the blanket for him. “But please don’t spend the night digging through my mind, if you can do things like that...”
No promises. Jax couldn’t help being perceptive these days. He curled up next to Ragatha and felt a peace as nice as sleeping in pools.
Ragatha’s arm curled around him, and Jax didn’t have to read her emotions to know she’d finally accepted a little comfort.
Good. Nothing could come for Ragatha in her sleep with Jax right there. He’d wake up.
He wished he’d been who he was now before...but this time, he’d be there for his friend.
The days rolled along, lighter than they’d once been.
Ragatha answered the phone more often, under the guise of waiting for information from Caine. Jax noticed that the conversations drifted into other topics.
She asked about the adventures and what people were up to. Short, awkward chats, but they made Jax hope Ragatha was coming back around to the idea of staying permanently lucid in the circus. Rebuilding bridges and all that.
Even better, Ragatha had begun to read the letters from her friends. Reading wasn’t working for Jax, but his insistent stomping convinced Ragatha to voice a few papers so he'd know what was going on.
Unsurprisingly, those saps in the tent missed Ragatha.
What Jax hadn’t expected was for them to miss him, too. Or at least they were pretending that they wished he were there. More than one of the notes asked Ragatha to pass him along a greeting.
He still wasn’t ready to go back, but...maybe someday. If Ragatha wanted to return.
“Are you wondering why I don’t go back, Jax?” Ragatha leaned her back against the couch. She sat on the floor, surrounded by open letters and drawings from Gangle.
She told him about the divide she was struggling with. “You remember that we aren’t... I mean... agh, never mind. It’s selfish for me to bring this up to you of all people.”
Jax jumped into her lap, the clearest ‘go’ signal he could give. Ragatha petted his cheeks.
“You’re turning purple again,” she said quietly. “I just...don’t want to mess things up for you.”
Jax stayed where he was, taking in Ragatha's warmth while combating her ever-swirling emotions. He wasn’t sure when he’d begun to crave the opposite of cold.
Their feelings both frightened and reassured each other. They were dependent in a way they never had been on anyone.
Ragatha sighed and fessed up.
“I can’t get it out of my head that we aren’t real.”
She took a moment to arrange how she wanted to say it, staring at her blank TV. “There’s a real girl out there who acts like me, and she gets to see every wonderful thing about the world that I never will.”
She gestured to the starry pasture beyond the living room window. “That’s why I had to move out in the first place. Because she did. I was desperate to feel the same sense of motion.”
The digital clone thing had freaked Jax out, too, but he’d barely had time to worry about it. It’d just been one last thing on the pile that had always been headed towards collapse.
“My real person is named Suzie,” Ragatha said. “Yours is Leeroy.”
My name. It didn’t feel like that was him, though.
She gasped. Jax’s head jerked back.
“Oh, Jax, did anyone ever tell you that he’s doing well? Whatever you remember, he kept living after that. He seems really happy now.”
I don’t really care about some guy who got a better ending than I did. Actually, I might hate him.
“I try to feel better knowing all the horrible stuff from my childhood didn’t even happen to me.” Ragatha wiped her eye. “It doesn’t make me feel better, though. It makes me feel like I don’t even get to process it. It wasn’t me, after all.”
She had to be talking about her mom. Jax put his paws on her collarbone, and Ragatha’s palm cupped his shoulders.
I can still see my mom on the floor. But he’d never shoved his mom, had he? ‘Leeroy’ had.
Jax didn’t know where that left him.
“And everyone we live with, Jax, I couldn’t help but think- if I’m not real, they can’t be, either.” She squeezed him. Her tears fell on his neck. “Even you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I’m messed up.” Ragatha took a shuddering breath.
“But even though I thought like that, you got me to care about you, and now I can’t think of you as fake. I wasn’t expecting it. You just- didn’t want to be at the tent anymore, and I didn’t want Pomni and everyone to force you, because they were trying to do that to me, too.”
Jax’s ears perked as he looked up at Ragatha’s tear-streaked face. He remembered what she was talking about. She was right that he hadn’t wanted to go back to the tent.
It was fine that she hadn’t cared about him before this. Jax hadn’t cared about her, either, not in the ways that counted. It didn’t change what they had now.
“Then, we got close somehow. You got into my house. I don’t let anyone in here anymore. Only you. It felt right.”
Jax had felt the same way. They were moving based on feelings these days, just trying to stay above water. Since when did I want out of the water?
Since I realized Ragatha’s not splashing around with me. And I don’t want her to be, either.
Ragatha deserved to make some kind of life for herself. Maybe everyone abstracted someday, and it was what it was, but she shouldn’t abstract yet. Take it from me.
Jax tucked his face under her chin, drying the wet fabric there with his fur. At some point, his inky abstracted skin had turned soft and begun to shift colors. Ragatha had cried when they woke up one morning and his eyes were yellow. Only yellow. Only two.
“Thanks for wandering in, Jax,” Ragatha whispered. “If...if you turn back to your old self someday, I hope you’ll stay here with me.”
Jax’s heart beat faster.
“It’s your choice. But- I have to offer. So you know that I want you to.”
He wanted that, too. He wanted to stay no matter what happened.
Ragatha loosened her grasp, but Jax lingered, cozy in her lap. She stroked down his back. He melted against her.
Who knows what’ll happen? Jax was just glad to be here now.
For a long time after abstracting, Jax’s dreams consisted of colors and shapes. Sometimes, there was music.
The closer he got to full lucidity, the more structured his dreams became. He dreamt of the mother he never had—of helping her to her feet before telling her he was leaving. He dreamt of knocking on Ribbit’s door before it was too late. Of going with Kaufmo so he could talk the crazy out of him.
He dreamt of letting someone in before he’d nuked himself. Maybe a certain rag doll. She would’ve helped him any day of the week, as horrible as he’d been. Ragatha had been under a lot of stress her entire existence, yet she had deep wells of empathy.
Jax had grown to love her, even without being sure what she was to him. It didn’t matter.
That love for Ragatha was why he was devastated to blink into a dream of her in bed. He’d been here before.
“I- I didn’t mean to come to your dream months ago,” Jax begged Ragatha to understand. It was strange to talk after so long. He was his old, unabstracted self. “I had no idea what I was doing half the time. I didn’t mean to ask you to abstract.”
Ragatha didn’t look upset. Instead, her face lit up. “Jax, I haven’t seen you like this in forever!” She smiled and tucked her hair. “Am I ruining everything we’ve built if I ask you for a hug?”
Jax shook his head, stepping back. “Not a good idea, Raggy. I don’t know exactly how this works, but I was asleep when Ribbit came to- to offer me a choice.”
“Oh…” she sounded sad.
He breathed harder. “Why am I here? I thought you were getting better!”
“I’m doing a lot better than I was,” Ragatha agreed.
“Then why are you having an abstraction dream?!” It was a soul-wrenching failure on Jax’s part. “What if it hadn’t been me who showed up? Would someone else have just let you do this?”
Ragatha sat up, concerned. “Jax, it’s alright. I- I don’t think this is what you think it is.”
Jax’s brows furrowed. “What else could it be?”
“I just...have this feeling. I think I’m supposed to...” Ragatha put out her mitten, smiling at him hopefully.
Jax recoiled. He couldn’t do this, not after all he’d done to save her. “Ragatha, please. You don’t want this. Don’t take it from me or anyone else.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m offering something to you.”
Does she mean..?!
“You can’t just- that’s not how it works!” Jax exclaimed.
“Why not?” Ragatha asked.
He laughed, an overflowing of nervous energy. “Because what if you abstract when you touch me?”
“...what if something else happens?” Ragatha tilted her head. “I won’t abstract tonight. I feel the best that I have in years.”
“This dream is about something else,” she said firmly, and shook her hand that was still in the air.
Something deep within Jax longed to finish the connection, but his stomach turned, too.
“If you’re wrong, I’m gonna…”
“Do what, Jax? I trust you. If this backfires, I know you’ll still help me.”
“Yeah, or turn back into the mindless beast I was vacationing as before you decided to play evolution with me.” Jax gripped the base of his ear. He gestured outwards. “I won’t be able to help you- you’re the one who’s been helping me. It’ll be over for both of us!”
Ragatha pushed her fingers along the quilt she lay under, smoothing it out. “This is probably the first time I’ve been sure in my life. And...I know you trust me, too.”
Jax did.
“Why don’t we try everything again?” she asked.
There was so much that could go wrong, even if she was right about what this was. But Jax’s desire to spend real time together, time he’d denied them in their past, finally overrode his fear.
He put his hand in Ragatha’s.
Jax burst awake in Ragatha’s bed, his panting filling the air. His panicked eyes searched until they found the rag doll beside him, looking just as she ever had and beginning to stir.
“Jax...? Did that- oh my God,” she said, sitting up quickly, pushing the blankets off. “Jax, it worked! Holy shit!”
“We can still swear with Caine back?” Jax laughed breathily. He checked to make sure he was dressed—he wore his default overalls.
The energy was electric. Neither of them knew what to do with their excitement.
I’m so fucking glad she wasn’t wrong!
“He’s made a lot of changes.” Ragatha seemed about to explain more, but she blushed and clammed up.
“What has that crazy bastard done, huh?” Jax poked her. “For you to look like that!”
“You’ll hear about all of it, I’m sure.” Ragatha glanced away with an awkward smile. She looked at Jax’s face again, and the flush on her cheeks faded. “I can’t believe that worked.”
Soft arms squeezed Jax's torso. He stiffened, and Ragatha withdrew like she was yanked on a string.
“I’m sorry- I didn’t even ask! Are hugs okay?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess.” Jax looked around the room. He liked hugs from Ragatha, but what if everything got weird now that he wasn’t a cute little animal? He gripped the blanket under his palms.
What if everything had changed?
“I don’t know if that’s a yes or a no,” Ragatha said. “It’s okay if you don’t want me to...”
No, that’s definitely the same old Ragatha.
Jax hugged her; her uncertainty was more than he could bear. It could undo their progress.
She relaxed against him, warm, her hands coming up to rest on his back.
It was weird not being able to read her feelings anymore. It frightened Jax a little, like she might be secretly thinking something bad about him. There were plenty of bad things he’d given people to think.
Use your brain. You listened to her heart gush about you for ages. He knew Ragatha by now.
He knew how she felt about him. She was safe. He didn’t need to wonder.
He also didn’t need to think about how he’d been sleeping in her bed for a while now, and that he didn’t want to stop. Not yet. That was an awkward conversation for tonight.
Jax flopped back onto a pillow, exhausted at the start of the day. “What do we do now? I'm not ready to tell all those jerks I'm back.” He needed time to get himself together. Ragatha, too. They'd brought themselves back from total isolation, but they both still had a lot of shadows to shine a light on.
Fuck. I actually have to work on all of that shit in my head so I don't abstract again. He wasn't looking forward to that. We'll do Ragatha's baggage first.
Ragatha loomed over him, her finger poised at her lips. “If you aren't going to the circus...do you want to help me turn this into a two-person house? Then we can invite them over to see it sometime, when you’re ready.”
“Asking me to move in?” Jax dropped his jaw.
“I already did before! You’ve had time to think about it!” Ragatha pushed her hair back. Her face was red again. “You don’t have to. I just thought- it seemed like you...”
Seriously stressing out Ragatha wasn’t fun for Jax anymore.
“After all of that? You’re never getting rid of me.” He leaned close and tugged on her bow. “It’s our house now, Rags.”
“Hey!” She batted him, grinning.
“So let me show you how I’d decorate a living room.” Jax swung his legs out of bed and hit the ground running.
She took it as the threat that it was, stumbling behind him in her adorable gingham pajama set.
“Wait. Jax! Let’s talk about it first!”
Thank you so much to katnipjpg for the incredible art!! <3
